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In recent weeks, Ethiopia's army has waged a bloody offensive against local forces in Tigray province. There was no internet and no one was allowed to enter the area. Now in some areas controlled by the government army aid workers and journalists are admitted. For the first time, VRT NWS team was able to go to the area where no one had come before.

Tigray was completely closed in recent weeks. It was impossible for outsiders to visualize what was really going on at the front. Aid workers were also not allowed in, despite the fact that there were also hundreds of thousands of Eritrean refugees in relief camps in Tigray. 1 million Tigreans are said to have fled their homes.

Now that the army has taken large parts of the area, the government is slowly letting foreigners in. Stijn Vercruysse and his team from VRT NWS went to the southwest of Tigray.

"Further on, we passed ghost villages", says journalist Stijn Vercruysse in "The morning" on Radio 1. "That's what we feared. There were corpses on the road and we saw burnt-out tanks, but also buses with bullet holes in them. The people who stayed behind say they have no food, no water, and no medicine. "

The team also encountered Eritrean refugees along the way. They say they have been expelled from the camps. In the meantime, fighting continues in various places.



Watch the report in "Het Journaal" (20/12/2020) with reporter Stijn Vercruysse below:

VIDEO: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/12/20 ... et-geweld/