A footage posted on Facebook early in March shows Ethiopian soldiers and Regional Special forces, armed and non-armed local militia, accompanying a soldier who dragged a man, stripped naked, most likely tortured, and burnt alive.

Speaking in Amharic as they walked toward the main crime scene, the soldiers mockingly kept calling the victim ‘junta,’ a term often used to refer to ethnic Tigrayans. The soldier threw the man down on the ground, next to the charred remains of others who were also partially burned into ashes in roaring fires. The crowd rounded up the victim. They mocked him. They dragged him and cast him into the flames. The victim tried to get out of the fire, to no avail. They pushed him back using a stick. They also added wood and dry grass on the fire. They burned him as a human torch, alive. 

The time and location of this gruesome crime is now confirmed. It happened on March 3, 2022 at a place called Aysid, Benishangul-Gumuz region. The victims were thirteen Tigrayan civilians, residents of the region, who were released the same day from concentration camps and were returning home.  

This is, however, not an isolated incident, rather, a regular feature of the ongoing Tigray genocide.