Tragedy in Ethiopia

By Kristine Kostuck
Contributing Writer

The serenity, the relief of a village community that hadn’t been touched by their country’s civil warfare in 1977. There would be enough food to get through the rainy season with this harvest. But the village was burning, the sound of gunshots and screams filled the air.

It was like any other day for the people of Ethiopia. The civil war was winding down but a new generation of genocide was about to begin. It would last for years and continue until the people it affected saw no hope for peace.

The attack on the village left 165 dead. Some survivors fled while others waited, hoping for something to save them. If any were lucky enough to pull through the gunshot wounds and burns, they would lead a life of silence and chance. If victims spoke of their struggles they would put their families in danger for generations to come.

One of the survivors of that day in 1977 chooses to remain anonymous for this very reason, even though he is currently living in Fargo. Shot five times in the head, once in the arm and multiple times in the legs, he spends most of his time on his living room floor. He is paralyzed from the waist down and only has one useable arm. He is cared for by his wife, another Ethiopian immigrant.

He doesn’t remember much from that day. He was only 14 years old. The atrocity left marks on him that will always affect him physically and emotionally. He does remember the day his village was set afire. The flashbacks always start in the same. He is looking out of a window, his eyes filling with tears because he is watching his father’s green farmland burn. Eventually he can’t cry anymore and is forced to run for his life.

After the first shot to the head, he was comatose. “They left me as a dead man—it was like I was already dead,” he said. He is still unsure of how long he laid face down in the dirt before the American Red Cross found him. They rescued him and a few others that day, taking them to a refugee camp in Somalia. There, they removed each bullet from his head. He says he couldn’t talk for three weeks.

His recovery took weeks but later he was moved to America with his wife.

She was also rescued by the Red Cross and has endured just as much pain as her husband. She will spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to her five children. She had to leave them behind because she lost track of them during the chaos of a weekly attack.“I don’t know if they are dead, imprisoned or still on the run,” she said, “But I know that most of the time I can barely speak of some of the things I saw in my homeland.” For the sake of keeping them alive, if they are alive, she wishes to remain anonymous as well.

The couple both came from upper class families in Ogaden, Ethiopia, and are dedicated to their religion. Within the years of the civil war, most of their family were shot or imprisoned. Why this happened to them or is happening to other civilians is unknown by many. Some of the Ethiopian people don’t even understand why there is so much violence or why they are being targeted. Perhaps because the genocide has gone on so long.

The two describe the regime as inhuman, because they are not targeting a specific group, class or religion but almost any Ethiopian civilian. The regime is a tribe called the Tigra, that works closely with the country’s government.

When the war was supposed to be over, the killing continued, and after a few years people started to fight back. The regime invented more ways to kill people, this time with torture. Even the most peaceful protesters weren’t safe when the government killed over a hundred students outside of a peace rally. After enough bodies piled up, the people just stopped trying to reason with the government.

The Fargo couple have been very fortunate to escape. America was the secure home they desperately needed, but was not the end of their struggle. Neither speaks a word of English and they can’t work. They are surviving with the help of disability services, but hope to have more someday. Their first step is learning our language, something they are working on.

They are very grateful for everything our country has done for them. But they are troubled when they pay taxes because they know it could go to the Ethiopian government. As America is an ally, it is no secret we have given them money. The two are not resentful of this, but instead wish for a way the world could see their country’s story through their eyes.

“The worst thing I think could happen to them, has,” said Arabi Rabi, a Minnesota State University student. He is from the same place as the couple and is a spokesperson for the “Silent Cry” documentary promotion. “The Red Cross, any media and the other human rights groups are banned from the country,” he said.

“Silent Cry” is a film that a group of four British students made after visiting Nairobi Kenya, over a spring break trip. They first heard about Ethiopia’s horrific story when they met a taxi driver. He told them about a refugee camp, called the IFO Refugee Camp, in the northern part of Kenya, a destination for the genocide victims. The students knew they had to visit it. If everything the driver said was true, they were going to capture it on film. This led to the documentary “Silent Cry.”

The documentary broke their silence and became the voice for the Ethiopian people when it was given global distribution. The mission is to raise awareness about the genocide. “We can’t make a mark until everyone knows that its going on,” said Rabi. “I just hope one day we have enough people standing behind us to make a change.”

Rabi became part of the awareness project after he noticed nobody in the United States knew about his country’s oppression. He searched for something that could educate people about it and stumbled onto the “Silent Cry” film in Minneapolis. “I watched it twice, I cried both times. It was terrifying to think that the same things I had nightmares about as a kid, when I lived in Kenya, are still going on,” he said.

Rabi left Africa when he was very young, and has lived in the States most of his life. When he left Africa, he and his family hoped they would never have to be exposed to that kind of danger again or see anyone suffering in that way. “I’ve seen people being killed weekly. Then they put dead bodies on public display,” he said.

Both Rabi and the couple from the village say they saw things that were too hard to put into words, things that will forever haunt them. In “Silent Cry,” the women talk about being raped by multiple men in the span of hours, forced to watch their children buried alive and being forced to kill their children. Killing people almost seems like a game to the regime, they get creative when they torture their victims. But the militia didn’t like to waste bullets, said Rabi. Many victims had enough of their bones broken so they couldn’t move and were left to starve. Others were hung with barbed wire.

Rabi decided to bring the documentary to Fargo to educate as many here as possible. “All these people are asking for is to not be harmed, stop hurting us, our families, stop the rapes and violence. If these people were just given their human rights this would go away,” he said.

“Silent Cry” will be shown at MSCTC in Moorhead, on March 25 at 2:30 p.m., in the MSCTC Auditorium. From the parking lot, enter the South 1 door—that’s the door by the flagpole. After the film a brief discussion will follow, with Rabi’s own reflections on the genocide.

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If You Go
What: “Silent Cry”
Where: MSCTC Auditorium
When: Thursday, March 25, 2:30 pm
Info: 800.426.5603