Desta Gebreananya remembers seeing hundreds of bodies littered all over the street – young men, children and even pregnant women – on December 24, 2021- just days after Ethiopian allied forces raided her hometown of Abala in the Afar region.

The 41-year-old and her five children were fleeing the community, which is at the border between the Afar and Tigray regions, after hiding for a week in the house of a neighbour, an ethnic Afar. They walked on foot for three days and then paid smugglers to cross into Tigray.