On the afternoon of November 2 last year, Gebremichael Teweldmedhin, a Tigrayan jeweller and father of nine, headed to work in Gonder, a city in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia where he had lived for more than three decades.
When Gebremichael arrived in the city, he found a mob looting his nephew’s workshop. Gebremichael begged them to stop. Instead, they turned on him.
One relative, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the Bureau: “The looters took them, Gebremichael along with another 10 or 11 people who worked in that area – by vehicle. We tried to follow them but we were not able to get their whereabouts.
“Then other people told us they were killed. They are buried in a mass grave.”
Gebremichael was not political, his relative said. He was not educated, and did not engage with the hatred and misinformation that swamps Ethiopian social media. Yet his relative claimed online hate campaigns and calls for violence – particularly on Facebook – played a key role in not only his killing, but many others.
“The worst thing that contributed to their killing are the so-called activists who have been spreading hate on social media,” he told the Bureau. Some posts, he claimed, would name individuals or even post photos helping create an atmosphere “inciting attacks, killings and displacements”.
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