Graves seen in satellite images after massacres in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

The Washington Post reviewed more than two dozen satellite images first provided by Planet Labs that were taken between Oct. 25 and Dec. 10, interviewed witnesses, conducted a physical inspection of one site and consulted seven independent experts who specialize in remote sensing to pinpoint the large-scale burials and the growth of established graveyards in the days after hundreds were killed in massacres The Post first reported in March.

Eritrean soldiers arrived in the tiny mountainside village of Mariam Shewito on the morning of Oct. 25 and began killing residents, survivors said. Over the next week, soldiers terrorized nine other nearby villages, massacring more than 300 and setting fire to more than 60 structures, mostly inside of housing compounds, according to interviews with witnesses and an examination of satellite imagery by The Post.

Many residents fled their homes, hiding in the nearby forest. Others buried those who had been killed in temporary, shallow graves, while they waited for the soldiers to leave and safety to return.

After Eritrean forces left in early November, villagers filed back in and began the long process of burying the dead and mourning those lost. More than 50 people were killed near the Mariam Shewito Church and more than 150 people were buried near the Abune Libanos Church, villagers said, although they could not provide more specific locations or timelines.

At the request of The Post, remote sensing experts Corey Scher, a researcher at the City University of New York, and Jamon Van Den Hoek, an associate professor at Oregon State University, processed high-resolution satellite images collected between Oct. 25 and Dec. 10 around Abune Libanos Church, Mariam Shewito Church and the town of Kumro.

By visualizing changes in near-infrared light, which is particularly sensitive to healthy vegetation, they identified 40 separate locations with apparent ground changes that were likely not due to land management or natural phenomena and had the potential to be burial plots.

The Post provided Scher and Van Den Hoek’s initial findings and high-resolution satellite imagery to five additional analysts. Each said areas near Mariam Shewito Church had some likelihood of being linked to the interment of the dead.

Images produced by Scher and Van Den Hoek of Mariam Shewito Church show a significant amount of vegetation disappeared to the east and south of the main church building starting roughly two weeks after Eritrean soldiers left the village. This gap in time is consistent with reports of the time it took for villagers to find, and feel comfortable moving, those who had been killed.

The loss of vegetation alone, however, does not necessarily equate to burials.

“Mass graves vary significantly and may resemble trenches in rows in one location, but may be more haphazard in another. Some may include markers too,” said an analyst for Vigil Monitor, a United Kingdom-based civilian-harm research organization that specializes in satellite imagery analysis, who reviewed the imagery. “We look for uniformity in the close area around a suspected mass grave, and we work to exclude more benign activity by reviewing a longer time-series of ground changes in the general area.”

The analyst, whom The Post is not naming due to the sensitivity of their work, and two of their colleagues who separately reviewed the images, said they assessed there to be “ground disturbances of concern possibly linked to interment of the dead” around Mariam Shewito church, noting in these instances “the visuals are consistent with excavation of the ground, then re-filling.”

Micah Farfour, a remote sensing analyst with Amnesty International, also identified multiple areas near Mariam Shewito Church’s established graveyard where the “vegetation appears to have dried or been disturbed.”

Once it was safe to do so, The Post conducted an on-site inspection of Mariam Shewito.

After reviewing video and images of the graveyard taken during that inspection, Steven de la Fuente, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who previously also had reviewed the satellite imagery, said he had a “high level of confidence” in the new gravesite locations around the church.

“Rudimentary grave site markers are present in the most recent video,” de la Fuente wrote in an email. “These markers, or headstones, can be geolocated to a noticeable grave site expansion that coincides with the satellite imagery analysis.”

Three miles to the south, an image collected on Nov. 16 shows a mass gathering of people at Abune Libanos Church near Kumro, according to both Farfour and de la Fuente, who reviewed the image at The Post’s request. The image shows a semicircle made up of people surrounding an object on the southwest side of the church.

At least 34 of the victims were buried at one ceremony in late November at this church, a woman who attended a mass ceremony for the dead recalled. More than 150 in total were buried in the area.

Eight months after the peace deal, the fighting has died down, but the situation remains dire. While many have withdrawn, some Eritrean soldiers remain in Tigray. The World Food Program recently stopped delivering aid, as it was being stolen and resold in markets, ending vital nutrition to an already starving population. Farmers attempting to plant new crops across dust-filled fields in the hopes of avoiding starvation continue to find victims from the October massacres.

And so, the graveyards just keep expanding.