| Date: | 8 January 2021 |
| Bora massacre | |
| Location: | Bora, Tigray Region, Ethiopia |
| Partof: | Tigray War |
| Fatalities: | 187 civilians |
| Type: | |
The Bora massacre was a mass extrajudicial killing that took place in Bora in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia during the Tigray War, on 8 January 2021, with aftermath killings that continued up to 10 January. [1] [2] [3] Bora is the capital town of woreda Bora-Selewa, Southern zone of Tigray.
A skirmish occurred between the TDF and ENDF on the morning of 8 January in the Ajale mountains, about 16 kilometres northeast of Bora. After the fighting, soldiers descended upon Bora.[2]
A massacre by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) then took place, in which the ENDF killed from 70 to 170 civilians in Bora on 8-10 January 2021.[3] Soldiers went house to house in Bora and carried out the executions. After the killing, the soldiers stopped families from taking their dead. Burials were only permitted two days later; one person buried 26 corpses in the graveyard of the Abune Aregawi Church.[2] The executions mostly took the form of removing a man from his house, making him kneel, and shooting him in the head. In the aftermath, the killing spree reached nearby villages Adi Shegla, Chamela and Chelena.[3]
A mother testified to the EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation that her son was executed in the 8 January massacre for being a suspected TPLF fighter.
Survivors interpreted the identity of the perpetrators as Ethiopian soldiers.[2]
The “Tigray: Atlas of the humanitarian situation” mentions 187 victims,[3] of which 64 have been identified.[4]
The "Tigray: Atlas of the humanitarian situation",[3] that documented this massacre received international media attention, particularly with regard to its Annex A, which includes the Bora massacre.[5] [6] [7] [8]
Mulu Nega, the chief executive of Tigray's transitional government, and Daniel Bekele, head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), did not respond to LA Times' requests for comment.[2] After months of denial by the Ethiopian authorities that massacres occurred in Tigray, the EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation was announced in March 2021,[9] and published its report on 3 November 2021.