Jane Flanagan
Friday February 19 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Panic that occupying troops would plunder their most sacred treasure pushed the devout in Ethiopia’s holiest city to race into harm’s way to defend it, according to a witness to atrocities committed in the country’s civil war.
As clashes broke out between soldiers and rebel militia in Axum, worshippers rushed to the church where the Ark of the Covenant is reputedly secured and in which hundreds were seeking refuge.
“When people heard the shooting they ran to the church to give support to the priests and others who were there protecting the ark,” Getu Mak, 32, a university lecturer, told The Times. “Certainly some of them were killed for doing that.”
The Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets with the Ten Commandments, was carried to Jerusalem by King David
Described in the Bible as a gilded wood casket housing stone tablets etched with the Ten Commandments, the ark has been in the church’s compound since the 1960s. Its defenders had armed themselves only with “cobbles and sticks”, witnesses told a researcher from the Europe External Programme with Africa, which is investigating reports of atrocities.
Up to 800 people were killed in and around the Church of St Mary of Zion at the end of November by pro-government forces, according to an account given by a deacon at Axum’s most revered site.
Bodies were left on the city’s streets for days, drawing hyenas down from the nearby hills to scavenge. When soldiers left Axum, mass burials were held, according to witness statements.
Reports of the destruction and looting of priceless artefacts by troops since the conflict began in early November in the northern, heritage-rich Tigray region had prompted fears that the ark would be targeted, Getu added. “Everyone was worried it would be taken, to Eritrea, to [the capital] Addis Ababa, or just disappear, including me.”
The ark is said to be held at the Church of St Mary of Zion in AxumAP
He watched the mayhem on November 28 from his city centre hotel room, more than a week after government troops and those backing them from neighbouring Eritrea had descended on the city after heavy bombardment.
A day after the killings at and near the St Mary of Zion church, Eritrean forces went between homes, ancient ruins and churches looking for those sympathetic to the renegade Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
Getu said: “There was no mercy shown, they didn’t care if you were young, old, whatever. They killed people and took everything they could — from the electronics shop, the bars. There were many corpses.”
A shutdown of the internet and mobile phone networks has cut Tigray off since Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, deployed the army against the area’s leadership. News of rumoured atrocities, including scores of rapes and massacres committed by both sides, are only now filtering out.
Abiy, 44, who won the 2019 Nobel peace prize, declared victory against the TPLF in late November after pro-government forces took the regional capital, Mekele. His government has denied the involvement of Eritrea but is now being forced to row back on claims that no civilians had been killed in the campaign.
This week the foreign ministry admitted that “rape, plunder, callous and intentional mass killings” could occur in a conflict where “many are illegally armed”. It blamed Tigrayan militia for leaving the region “vulnerable”.
Humanitarian organisations have warned of a looming hunger crisis on the same scale as that seen in the mid-Eighties, which prompted the Band Aid fundraiser. Eighty per cent of Tigray’s population of six million remain cut off from help, the UN said.
Heritage experts acknowledge that a worsening humanitarian emergency must be prioritised over Ethiopia’s historical riches but the vulnerable artefacts are valuable to more than the Tigray region or the country.
Alessandro Bausi, an expert in Ethiopic texts and manuscripts at Hamburg University, said that the “cultural annihilation” being waged in Tigray should alarm the world.
How the ark got to Axum
In the Book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to “make an ark of acacia wood” after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. A gilded ark, or chest, was duly fashioned by the Israelites and in it Moses placed the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The Old Testament says that the ark was held at the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem for centuries but vanished after Jerusalem was sacked in 586 or 587BC. According to Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians the ark was taken to Axum by Menelik, son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel, in the 10th century BC. For the past 50 years it is said to have been been housed in the Chapel of the Tablet, designed by Emperor Haile Selassie, in the holy city of Axum in Tigray. No one is permitted to have access to the relic apart from a solitary monk.
Martin Plaut 
መከራን በሰዉ ላይ እንደዛ ሳቀለዉ ፤ እንዲህ ይከብዳል ወይ ለተሸከመዉ ሰዉ ።
Many of amhara men who want to give comment do prefer to write it in amharic in a bid to hide their snaky views here.
Many of the current leaders and their current fans living in overseas were the most famous henchmen during those 27 years.
TPLF made enormous changes during those 27 years , unlike those accusations made by Amhara elites as they protrude their poisnous toungue to speak . They just look obessed with the number “27” and money. If you ask them , they cann’t omit the above two terms. They donot even cease to amaze us in their words such as ” one mahara man uttered – those 27 years of Woyane rule we lived in darkness” If you search for media archives holding the news broadcasted during teh first month of TPLF adminstration, you will find teh same amhara people saying ” we donot consider /count those 17 years of Dergue regime ” when they were interviewed by journalists in 1991.They even empasazied their words by sayinng”I will start to count my age as of 1991, a year TPLF start to rule Ethiopia.These words are the words of amhara people and their key characteristics of being the social chameleon.
TPLF adminstration displayed a rigorous approach towards educational excellence worked to reduce rates of educational exclusion in the country.
TPLF adminstration built many universities , these can be seen at the following link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_and_colleges_in_Ethiopia
Between 2000 and 2013 it almost doubled the share of its budget allocated to education, from 15% to 27%. For example, the United States’ federal government spends just over 6%.
The number of primary schools almost tripled from 1996 to 2015, while student enrollment grew from less than 3 million to over 18 million within the same period—almost universal. Youth literacy meanwhile jumped from 34% in 2000 to 52% in 2011.TPLF made ethiopia, 2000 to 2018, rank the third-fastest growing country. https://qz.com/africa
TPLF sent many of these thugs who turned out to be back-stabbers and snakes in the grass from various universities and public offices for work mission and upon their arrival they transformed themselves into asylum seekers with a fabricated story that could likely win the heart of UNHCR staff.
Many amhara elites prefer to talk tell a bogus story of abuses during TPLF than that of derge regime or what their amhara did to them. TPLF had appointed many people from amhara region and if they claim that these asylum seekrs were illtreated it was committed by their own people .
Many of elites who were working for TPLF are not favored by these asylum seekrs in US and EU , becaue they are amhara or nonTegarus. Abiy , Demeke Mekonen, Redwan Hussen were working during those 27 years which Amara elites consider as dark era . TPLF excutive leaders receive information and documents upon which their decicion is relied. TPL leaders are dependant upon the information they receive from any oficial running regional or minsterial offies. Hence, why cannot balme thier leaders if they think things are getting wrong rather we see them working with all amhara leaders who were appointed diring TPLF leadership times. It is all about ethnic based profiling and Ethnocentrism-conception of members of a culture or social group as being the center, the normal, and superior to the others which is manifested by amhara elites.
People become blinded by their personal perspectives, medemer(Abiy’s philosophy of leadership-unity by gun) , amharnized ethiopiyawinet, to the extent where it becomes the correct choice for them to enforce their philosophies on other people at any expense.
When you see an act of terrorism, either domestic or foreign, then you are witnessing an act of ethnocentrism.
If they claim ethiopia is doing great now in terms of its educational, econmic devt , public insfrastructure , it is only and only because TPLF had laid a strong foundation beforehand.I never been supporter of TPLF rather an opponent wishing to welcome a new administration that could raise the country from poverty because I was deluded by those habitual lairs and pretenciously treacherous amhara men, preaching unity while being power mongers in diguise concealing thier thirst for power, who want to see an Amahara man becoming king in Ethiopia.