Teklay Tiku, a 71-year-old farmer, in Kerseber, a mountainous village in northern Tigray, on February 23, 2023. He shows a sack of wheat in which Eritrean soldiers have deliberately spoiled the grain with soil. NOE HOCHET-BODIN/LE MONDE
The last time he saw his son, on that morning in April 2021, Teklay Tiku knew right away that he would never see him again. His youngest child, Russom, 25, had just been rounded up in front of the family farm by Eritrean soldiers who had come to wage war in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, in support of the federal government. Ignited in November 2020 between the rebel region of Tigray and the powerful force of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the civil war, with the support of Eritrea, was in full swing. Forced into the back of a truck already full of young Tigrayans his age who had been abducted like him, Russom was taken to Eritrea. Since then, his family has never heard from him again.
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From the foothills of Kerseber, a mountainous village in northern Tigray, 71-year-old Teklay Tiku has long since given up his illusions about a war that robbed him of everything he held most dear: his son Russom, of whom all that remains is a battered passport photo; his property; and, finally, his ideals. On the only door of his farm still standing, the old man points to a damaged sticker on which is written “Finally in peace,” decorated with the colors of the Eritrean and Ethiopian flags. He had stuck it there in 2018, after the rapprochement between the two countries that was supposed to signal the end of the 20-year-old border conflict. “We were relieved to finally have peace with Eritrea, we believed in it,” he recalled. Except that this “historic peace” quickly turned into an alliance between Ethiopian Prime Ministers Abiy Ahmed and his counterpart, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, who joined forces to attack Tigray, the Tigrayans and their party, the Tigrayan People’s Read more