What happened to injured Tigray POWs and injured Oromia soldiers fighting in Tigray before the reoccupation of Tigray by the TDF(Tigray Defense Force)?
You hear a lot of news and see many videos of captured ENDF(Ethiopian National Defense Force) and Amhara fighters now in TDF custody but what happened to Tigray fighters captured by the ENDF and Eritreans?
I was at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital through the beginning of the war continuing to the beginning of January 2021 and I have been trying to investigate where this prisoners are located. We know that the Ethiopian and Eritrean government had planned a major assault on Tigray from some time before the events of November 4th 2020. The government had lined up casualty treatment hospitals with volunteer doctors mostly from Addis Ababa University to be based at Woldia during the major assault on Tigray and ending in Mekelle.
During the first two weeks of the war we treated civilians, Tigray Defense Forces soldiers, Ethiopian National Defense Soldiers, and Eritreans at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. A short time after the occupation of the city of Mekelle, the military commander of the the Ethiopian occupying forces decided to move injured ENDF and Eritrean fighters to a new military hospital that had just been constructed recently. This went on for a few weeks. The Red Cross showed up soon upon the start of the conflict and we wanted them to collect information on all injured persons but they were turned away by the Ethiopian authorities.
Medical supplies to Ayder Hospital and the military hospital essentially ceased and the Ethiopian military decided to treat their casualties in an open air hospital constructed in the newly built football stadium near the Martyrs Museum which was serving as the commanding generals headquarters.
After this the story of what happened gets difficult to follow. Many Amhara patients were transferred out of Tigray to Amhara hospitals including Woldia but not everyone.
There is a rising story that preferential treatment was given to Amhara FANO fighters and Ethiopian National Defense Forces while Oromo soldiers who were thought to be “poor candidates to survive” received less care and where often allowed to die.
Additionally most to the Tigray Defense fighters as well as many civilians including rape victims of the invading forces were removed from Ayder Hospital as I and other witnessed and never to be seen or heard from again. At this time there are no reports of any Tigray POWs in any hospital anywhere. Most of the photos given to the Ethiopian press labeled as Tigray POW have not been fighters but college students detained, Tigray residents from Addis Ababa, and refugees returning from Saudi Arabi.
It has recently been reported by several sources that some detainees of this group were summarily executed without any legal proceeding.
The question remains where are Tigray POWS? Where are the Oromia fighters injured that were fighting in Tigray?