Casualties of the Tigray war

True casualties statistics have been difficult to determine, largely due to deliberate information blackouts in the region.^[7] Journalists have noted the difficulty they face attempting to report on the war, as the Ethiopian government has taken steps to reduce press access to the Tigray Region, facing the risk of getting killed or imprisoned.^[8][9] It is also been reported that there is an unwillingness from either side to fully confirm precise numbers.^[10][11]

While Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed initially spoke of no civilian casualties in the early days of the war, by February 2021, he described the level of death in Tigray as "hav[ing] caused much distress for me personally.”^[12]

Numerous reports have been made of extrajudicial killings and summary executions (in many cases, targeting civilians) since the war began.^[19][20][21]

Terminology:

• ENDF – Ethiopian National Defense Forces
• EDF – Eritrean Defense Forces
• TDF – Tigrayan Defense Forces
• Fano – Amhara militia

As of 2 February 2021^[update], the highest estimate of civilian deaths in the Tigray War is that given by three of the opposition parties from the 2020 Tigray regional election: National Congress of Great Tigray, Tigray Independence Party, and Salsay Woyane Tigray, which were allocated 15 seats in September 2020, prior to the war.^[128] The three parties' statement, published on 2 February 2021, estimated that at least 52,000 civilians had been killed by the ENDF, the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF), Amhara militias, and other forces allied with the ENDF.^[129] Hailu Kebede, head of foreign affairs in Salsay Woyane Tigray, said that the three parties' collection method was to try to register data from witnesses in every administrative area of Tigray Region. He stated that "thousands" of names were already recorded.^[12]

A peer-reviewed study by researchers from the University of London calculated over 102,000 excess deaths in Tigray from November 2020 to mid-2022, of which 72% are from violence and the rest from lack of healthcare and famine.^[2]| According to researchers at Ghent University in Belgium, the combined impact of wartime violence and famine and a lack of medical access had killed an estimated 162,000–378,000 people, with other reported estimates reaching numbers as high as 600,000 killed.^[3][4] The African Union mediator, Olusegun Obasanjo, publicly stated that the war likely killed around 600,000 people.^[5]