HAMDAYET, Sudan — Samson Tsegaye thought that having a mixed background would protect him as militias drawn from the ethnic groups of his Amhara mother and his Tigrayan father went to war in Ethiopia last year.
But as Amhara fighters and their allies gained the upper hand in his home region of western Tigray, he watched a more ominous reality take hold.
First there were the [deleted]-for-tat massacres late last year — with hundreds of dead in each — between neighbors that had until recently lived and worked side-by-side.
Then, the forced mass expulsions of tens of thousands of Tigrayans, including Samson’s wife and daughter.
On Wednesday, after months of lying low, he was confronted on the street in Humera, a town on the border with Sudan and Eritrea, by a former high school classmate who was carrying a machete.
“He called me dik’ala — a ‘hybrid,’ because he knew that from before the war,” Samson, 26, said hours after crossing into Sudan. “And you know, I had thought being dik’ala was what would save me. But now, even one drop of Tigrayan blood in anyone is a death sentence.
“He said, ‘We’re coming for you next.’ ”
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Re: Ethiopian refugees say they escaped ‘final stage of ethnic cleansing’ in Western Tigray (Washington Post)
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