Around 10:30 am on Monday, there was a knock on my door. When I answered, I saw three men that I didn’t recognize. They invaded, throwing me on the floor.
They did not introduce themselves; they did not produce any type of identification or search warrant. They started looting my home.
For almost two years I have been reporting on the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, where government forces launched an operation last November to overthrow the regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF.
As a Tigrayan ethnicity, I have roots in the region. But, as a freelance journalist based in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, my motivation is to discover the truth of a war that has not been publicized because the Ethiopian government has cut the lines of communication and blocked media and humanitarian aid from much of Tigray since the beginning of his offensive in November.
I had just sent a story to the Los Angeles Times about a Tigrayan woman who was raped by Eritrean soldiers, who are fighting alongside Ethiopian forces, and held in captivity for 15 days with almost nothing to eat. The story has not been published until today, but it quickly became clear that the men in my house knew about it.
They wore civilian clothes, but carried weapons. They asked me if I had relationships with TPLF. I told them I had nothing to do with them and did not support any political group.
In the shadow of the war, Addis Ababa is a tense place for the Tigray people today. At Tigray itself, at least six journalists were arrested in the first week of combat, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Last month, unidentified gunmen shot and killed a reporter from a state TV station in Mekele, the regional capital. The reporter, Dawit Kebede Araya, had previously been arrested by the police and questioned about his coverage of the war.
The men in my house threatened to kill me if I continued to research stories about the situation in Tigray. They also harassed me about my previous coverage.
They took my laptop and a flash drive that contained photos I had obtained from a source in the town of Adigrat, in Tigray, which showed evidence of Eritrean soldiers in several villages. Ethiopia and Eritrea officially deny that the troops are inside the country, but my reports and many other reports indicate otherwise. The photos I received showed uniformed Eritrean soldiers in their makeshift camps in Tigray, including some in houses they seized.
A few days earlier, a therapist who is treating the rape survivor I wrote about told me that the woman had also received a threatening phone call, warning her not to identify Eritreans as her attackers. The therapist told me to take as much care as possible with the woman’s safety and begged me to reveal little about her identity in the article.
Before the men left, they warned that things would be more difficult for me next time. On Thursday, the Ethiopian government issued a statement saying that I was not a “legally registered” journalist, an attempt to discredit my work.
I don’t feel safe here anymore. I only have my Ethiopian passport and leaving the country is difficult anyway because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I fear that the men may return, looking for more evidence of a war that Ethiopia has tried to keep silent.
Lucy Kassa is a special correspondent.