Eritrea - A Carnage In Memoriam

A Carnage In Memoriam

by Mewael Gebregziabher Translated by Tedros Markos

Meandering across the streets of Asmara, a blue death squad Volkswagen followed by a military Jeep turned left by Mercato in the afternoon hours of October 1975. The townsfolk, who had already identified the Volkswagen with its long-distance shrill sound, praised Heaven as it went off rumbling past their homes, but harbingered an awful barbarism would afflict somewhere else. As the escorted Volkswagen whose shrill sound used to petrify the towns people stopped at Bar Amanuel, a sizable death squad flung out carrying compact Uzi submachine guns.

Unaware of the impending menace and transported with the indoor game, the youths on cloud nine were hitting balls into the pockets. The troops entered into the bar at a fast pace and started to pull triggers without any question. The bar that had been a recreation room few minutes earlier became a quasi-battleground. A barrage of gunfire reverberated in the area. The youths in their twenties collapsed all over the place fallen upon from nowhere. Agony and sorrow reigned. Blood inundated the floor. The death squad turned over the bodies on the floor with a view to putting those on the brink of death to the sword, and disappeared frenzied as a beast that pounced on its prey.

Out of about 40 youths, only one or two managed to flee at the dawn of the incident. Amidst 37 youths that were gunned down underneath the billiard table and in every corner of the room, there was a long-haired, light-skinned youth shot on the head, who disguised as a deceased until he finally cried out for help upon arrival of helpers. The remaining departed this life. Bedridden for more than eight months, Mr. Fessehaye Hayle – currently working for Senbel wood and metal foundry – finally survived to recount the event owing to the assistance and hospitalization provided to him.

Mr. Fessehaye, now in his sixties, recollects the unfortunate episode as follows: “We Asmarans are accustomed to playing billiards. That very Sunday, nevertheless, a cohort of soldiers stormed out of the blue into the bar around 4:00 p.m., and began to outpour a barrage of gunfire. Agonized screams and adversity, as well as a continuous gunfire burst filled the room. Those who tried to find their feet were shot again. I also fell down of a bullet. Since I was shot on my head, I barely attempted to get to my feet due to heavy bleeding. I was losing control of my body and consciousness. Lain down among the corpses, all I implored for was death. The youths were agonizing to death, too. All in all, there were well over thirty corpses in the bar.

There came two other airborne troops carrying guns following the incident. I asked them for help. At that juncture, I was desperately in need of passing away. I eventually lost blood and fainted.” An eleven-year-old eyewitness was watching the scene of carnage sitting at the fountain nearby. The youngster beyond observing the atrocity has lost his own father, who vanished by the death squad since his childhood years. Now working for Sabur Printing Press, Ibrahim Anwar, 46, commits the close to four decades old tragedy to memory as it happened of late. “At about 3:50, two death squad vehicles that came by the municipality headed towards Bar Amanuel ultimately stopping in front of me. Armed soldiers swooped down the bar. With two soldiers standing by the mosque outside, the remaining troops went into the bar and commenced to fire. Alarmingly, they were letting bullets off arbitrarily as we would watch in movies.

Handful youths managed to narrowly escape through the big doorway and absconded as fast as their feet can carry them. I observed the tragedy, given that my residence was at the palace adjacent to the bar.” These innocent civilians were just decimated on account of being Eritrean youths. Such shock doctrine, nonetheless, was a failed subterfuge merely employed to succumb Eritreans by prevailing a reign of terror throughout the country, and thereby hold back the national liberation movement from advancing.

Before the bereaved families removed their mourning veils, however, the death squad that mercilessly took many lives in Bar Amanuel startlingly came once more after a fortnight and killed two other people – including a worker there. Countless nationals were ruthlessly put to death the nation over on bogus accusations or for offences they did not commit. In the wake of the incident, 36 people died – including students, brothers and then prominent footballers.

The then Asmarans would always have down pat the massacre and the resulting blood that was washed out to the sewer system a day after. “The blood that was washed out from the bar Monday morning,” says Ibrahim, “attested a mass killing on a par with butchering in a slaughterhouse. My grandma, may Allah rest her in perfect peace, along with other residents in the area scrubbed down the blood with saline water hoisted from a pond. I remember, they washed out the blood to the sewerage across the asphalted alley,” he says.

The Eritrean people underwent a myriad of bitter inflictions in the course of two successive Ethiopian colonial regimes. As a result of such barbaric treatments, each and every Eritrean family inside and abroad now bears unforgettable adversity it would rather not call back to memory. Due to similar cruelties carried out across the nation, the Eritrean people were displaced, dispersed, compelled to exile and exterminated. The death squad Volkswagen was left with nothing but all roads traversed and doors slammed. Children were snatched from warm embrace of their respective families. Parents, whose unrewarding attempts to set their offspring free were fatal, wept for brutally murdered children. Tens of thousands of fellow compatriots were put to death by the same token.

Razing villages, imprisonments, as well as torture were regular activities that were taking place on a daily basis. What’s more, the justifications they had been giving for some of the cruel acts of mass killings and internments to death they perpetrated on Eritreans were by all accounts nothing but trivial ones such as singing in favour of Eritrean revolution, pro-liberation writings on walls and so on.

Oppressive mistreatments only added momentum to Eritrea’s protracted liberation movement that in due course achieved the lofty goal at price. Mr. Fessehaye Hayle, who survived the barbaric act in Bar Amanuel, has not only experienced motor sensory paralysis following the tragic incident, but also is his son a fallen hero martyred in the 3^rd round of the war to safeguard Eritrea’s sovereignty. His other son sustained heavy war injury during the 2^nd round all-out war the TPLF launched against Eritrea.

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