At least’ 78 priests ‘massacred’ in one zone of Tigray, leaked letter claims

The document, obtained exclusively by the Telegraph, claims a number of mass killings have taken place over the last five monthsByLucy Kassa10 May 2021 • 4:45pm

At least 78 priests were ‘massacred’ in one zone of Tigray, according to an official church letter leaked to the Telegraph.

The letter, which was addressed to the Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, says that “priests, deacons, choristers, and monks” have been “massacred” over the last five months.  

Half a dozen survivors confirmed the news to this newspaper and said that both Ethiopian national army soldiers and Eritrean troops went into their holy spaces across southeast Tigray and “shot them down”.

Ethiopia has been wracked by a horrific civil war since the Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed sent his national army into the mountainous northern region of Tigray to oust the powerful regional government there on November 4.

The news comes several days after a video was smuggled out of the country showing the head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church Abune Mathias condemning what he calls a ‘genocide’ being committed on the ethnic Tigrayan people by the Ethiopian state.