Visiting Tigray, The Worst War You've Never Heard Of (#173)

wow just look at all these empty shells of buildings that line the roads here haven't seen something like this since China everyone has heard of the war between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Palestine but there have been even bigger conflicts going on at the same time unnoticed by the world the biggest of all was the T war in Ethiopia where almost a million people may have died in the last two years this War was between the Tigra Province and the government of Ethiopia assisted by erria the neighboring country no one paid any attention to it no one cared when I decided to visit TIG I didn't even know the full details of the war I went because it's actually a beautiful region where they say the Ark of the Covenant is held you know the thing with the Ten Commandments I took a flight from Adis Ababa where for the second time Ethiopian Airlines misplaced my luggage this happens like every day yeah every day in Ethiopian Airlines they don't send the bag to the hotel or anything I went to the biggest restaurant in town and talked to people this is the rest of my journey welcome to the tigar region in Northern Ethiopia a place that up until very recently was a large war zone nowadays the city is said to be a den of Thieves Bandits you have to watch yourself walking around I don't know what to believe that's why I'm here about to find out together I believe I am the only foreign tourist in this entire region at the moment Josie didn't even want to join for this one work they didn't they didn't finish the buildings I think uh it's uh uh Chinese Engineers are going to work this oh the Chinese are going to come and finish oh oh okay so you can see behind me right here you have some unfinished buildings and not just one two 3 it's not that these were used for like sniper positions or anything like that is that this region used to actually be pretty prosperous before the war these buildings were stopped mid Construction so there you have it the Chinese are going to come in and finish the buildings go go you got to get him get him get your guad so what I'm walking through right now is the biggest city in the tig region it's called Mel it's actually a much bigger city than I was imagining it's like 500,000 people or something like that not something you typically see walking through your city center here we have the Seaman bed and breakfast I missed out on staying there last night all right so over here we got a place called belly fashion interesting name for a clothing shop and then over there we've got a cafe called the IQ Corner they're killing me with these names out here can I have uh chip chipa with egg yeah and then also what is the IQ specialty yeah this one what what is Flavor honey flavor and ginger and ginger okay does it make you smarter okay just ordered a dish that I've never heard of to see what it's like and uh I ordered an IQ specialty because I don't know I need to raise mine I think it's pretty obvious all right that was pretty good that was about $2 at the black market exchange R and over here across the street you have the former president of Ethiopia Mr I know his last name zealous the important thing about him and the the reason why they're showing a president that left office in 2012 or died in office is because he was the gru he was from TIG and Ethiopia like many countries in Africa has some issues with tribal conflict this place doesn't actually seem that bad a little bit under construction but you know way more developed than I was expecting now I've actually come to TIG for for a very specific reason nowadays this region is sadly more known for the war that took place but there's a very interesting place about 2 hours north of here there's a town called axum and supposedly there there's a church that contains the Ark of the Covenant and is guarded by a team of virgins you heard that right they have to be virgins to guard the church I apparently no one's ever gotten to see this before at least on YouTube so let's go check it out I see that here in TIG they use Tuk Tok big fan of TK TOS let's grab one of those take a little tour around the city see what we can find afraid afraid the people so during the war on this street it was completely empty it's empty so much afraid so how is the flight it's good that you speak some English cuz not many people T speak yeah little yeah ini have here CH ey Mor Memorial monument Center feel like the sign could use a little touchup but it's biggest monument in mck there's conf conference yeah so it's my one day Melly can I see I take picture this Monument is a monument to the Ethiopian Civil War where we last left off we're talking about the last king of Ethiopia Haley Cassi turns out he was murdered by Communists and then a new regime took over the durg the tigar they started the uprising that eventually overthrew the Communist Regime and brought Ethiopia back to normaly this was Legend of okay for people I didn't know there's more people here this was you you are living here yeah oh it's bit okay yeah stopping at the gas station okay come on I am apparently the first visitor at the former Palace of yanas it's kind of cool they're in the war did anyone come here yes during the war was this place attacked yeah yeah yeah okay there was a big broken broken so during the war they just came in took this chair and then threw it yeah they it to be disrespectful yeah okay come on here when the adults act like children were instruments especially Emperor johanes sword oh they stole the weapons yes oh okay so they just like what attack the door yeah yeah man this was uh this Sal so the whole Palace is kind of overgrown at the moment nobody's been here for over two years so I've unfortunately been facing some linguistic challenges here in TIG which is not something I say very often there's a lot of different languages in Ethiopia the language here is called you're from the same language family as Arabic they have all the same sounds like and d and like you know all those sounds you have to choke yourself to make un fortunately I don't really speak that language I know maybe three words thankfully last night I made some friends they're going to join me on my trip over to ax okay all right so this is uh Mercy yeah and uh it's like LeBron but cabon now we're going to go to axum and find some virgins right that's how can you refuse a mission like that you just see destroyed Vehicles like this all along the side of the road as we're driving through the tig region and uh you can also see a bunch of cows why did we give him money chur for the church okay wow so this beautiful region right here that literally looks like Switzerland this right here was the site of a massive battle between the tdf the tan Defense Forces and the Ethiopian government the arran government and also the amharas the place that we're just in in liella what's it called okay there has been unable war in in and tdf defeated them so this is yela the tdf they would have been stationed right up there and then the Ethiopian Government tried to desperately come up these roads that was back in 2021 back then TIG was doing so well that there was a legitimate fear that they were going to go all the way to Adis Ababa and Conquer Ethiopia and create like an entirely new government the Ethiopian government made a deal with the Eritrean government for them to come and send forces Eritrea is the country just next to here just over the border from TIG in Ethiopia crazy times come man it's really a shame this place is really beautiful Ethiopia seriously you guys have a beautiful country here got to stop fighting he come here so uh Kon right k k so K was in the tdf fighting against guess the Ethiopian government what was that like how long what what did you do when you're in the tdf mechanic and Driver the car you're driving the car yeah so during the war everyone like young old 50y old 6y old why does it say no guns on that car I think it's what oh okay so that that car is a NGO CARiD we need ID C cards okay good so that was AAR checkpoint T security checkpoint yeah like tdf yeah okay so those were like local TIG militias that were doing a security checkpoint Ethiopian politics are extremely complicated and I'm not going to try to explain them here because gives you a headache but to simplify things this war that started in 2020 was basically because the tigay region historically being a region with a lot of influence in Ethiopia they controlled the government effectively up until 2018 they thought that the Ethiopian government was being unfair maybe they were and in response the tig region launched their own Defense Force to take control of the region hey good morning we made it to axom the city that holds the church with the Ark of the Covenant there's also the original capital of the Ethiopian Empire but uh beyond that uh going to be real with you I'm pretty damn tired at the moment apparently it's a thing in Ethiopia for people to just I don't know play music right outside your window until 3:00 a.m. and keep you awake because that's what happened to me and uh I'm a pretty sensitive sleeper so I think I got maybe 1 hour of sleep last night anyway let's go out and explore Axel oh thank you thank you can you live we says thank you because we have a peace now oh yeah it's nice to see you also people to come and visit can all right so we're here in the home of the quote unquote virgins and turns out what they meant by that was it's the home of the monks and nuns Ethiopia they have a way of putting things sometimes yeah this is your home he was a priest and he was having a family his wife so when his when his wife is die then he said just I should give up he become a monk oh till now he's giving the service here as a monk at at what age 1983 sorry 1983 he become three years before I was born yeah okay kind of sleep walking through this video right now the blue one or the that's what they ARG okay nobody cannot go inside only the Monk and there is also assistant that building right there is where the Arcus can you see the green window the green can I can I walk up to the can I walk up the stairs no out you see from here you can't take a picture oh from here I can't go further supposedly the Ark of the Covenant is stored in that building over there behind me but to see it you have to be a specially chosen virgin a specially chosen one one that was chosen by God I may have to go my entire life without seeing the coven if you're if you're a virgin and you just come here can you see the Ark of the Covenant not possible no only the one who's been selected by the monk who was the guardian you understand me a lot of uh monks are virgin but they don't allow them to be to the guardian of the Ark oh okay so we're walking now on the streets of axel axom used to be a very popular tourist destination in Ethiopia but it was a focal point of the recent war between Kai and Ethiopian government these are like tar dresses signs of War they attacked yeah oh this was the door yeah okay and they they shot it [Music] okay another another bullet hole here so you're trying to hide all the bullets oh they they fixed the they stole everything from the store I'm sorry you good luck you can see a tent here from the unhcr conflict created a lot of refugees in the region and this is one of the Gathering points in from the refugees yeah from where thehar the amharas and the a Tran attacked thank you this this from New Year's H is this the stuff they throw for the New Year's a New Year's Day in Ethiopia which is not the same as your New Year's day they just take grasses like this and throw it all over the floor it's kind of nice but you got to clean it up afterwards so we're walking now through the ruins of the axite Empire the axom mites were a very powerful State they were almost like the Roman Empire of Africa they conquered territory all the way into Yemen in the Middle East and you could tell they were respected even by the Europeans because in Europe the Romans and everyone else used to refer to all of Africa as Ethiopia and it was this state that eventually took the name interestingly this Obelisk right behind me was actually taken by Italy in the 1930s during World War II and they brought it back after some negotiations Italy finally returned the Obelisk to Ethiopia in 2005 more than 50 years later and thus most Ethiopians will consider this place axom to be the Cradle of Ethiopian civilization the beginning of the Ethiopian state right here in the northern Ethiopian Highlands up in t you know it's kind of stupid I remember just recently there's this big controversy about that series produced by uh Will Smith's wife about Cleopatra and everybody was arguing like was she black was she white who cares why don't they make a series about the axide Empire Hollywood stupid man gymnast of Ethiopia so now we going to the museum it's not allowed the pictures these were coins of the aites and then the AER [Music] trains not supposed to film in here but the recent war between TIG Ethiopian government Andra re the Museum St Manion cor tell him I want to show the world what happened thean troops they have been taking lot of coins here aite coins gold coins oh man another notable thing about this time period is that during the oxamide Empire the gz script was invented that's the script that you see everywhere in Ethiopia and Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that uses its own script it's kind of an amazing thing so here you have all the different flags you got Switzerland America but the biggest flag is tigay Ethiopia kind of scratched out over there I see that as you can see here just steps from the axm my ruins we have the Ethiopian version of a boarded up house these must have been abandoned during the war almost everyone here lost someone during that Conflict for two years AUM airport yeah airport okay so over here just behind me is the old airport of axum what's kind of funny is when I was researching ways to fly into tigai because it's the province I originally wanted to fly directly here to oxom because has lots of history and everything like that little did I know the airport in oxum had been destroyed over the past two years hopefully it'll be back soon so just behind me we have lots of refugee tents set up by the UN being that it was a conflict that went off for two years people from all over the provinces lost their houses lost their livelihoods and they've gathered in this spot hi Salam this is uh bet bait okay from their parents oh they don't have their parents yeah so they're [Music] orphans um hey uh can you tell them to like share it for everyone okay everyone come Ox Business and Technology Cor [Music] so we're now in the town of adwan which to be honest doesn't look that different from any other town in Ethiopia or in Africa for that matter but as a matter of fact I never get tired of seeing donkeys out here as a matter of fact this town this place was the site one of the most important battles in the history of Africa this grave behind me marks the Battle of ad took place in 1896 another war that took place on Ethiopian soil but that was a very different war that was a war between Ethiopia and Italy and unlike almost every other conflict in Africa this time the Africans won well even the people here don't know about the incredible battle that happened there let me tell you about it a little context in the 1890s colonialism was hitting its peak Europe had had the conference at Berlin they decided to carve up the entire continent amongst themselves and Italy kind of like that one uncle that finally got into cryptocurrency a few years late Italy wanted to join the party the Italians had already created a colony in Libya along the Mediterranean and also they conquered the coast along the Red Sea which later became Eritrea and that's the reason why Eritrea is a separate country today but the big prize was Ethiopia and Italy knew that Ethiopia was the strongest state in Africa they were organized and they also had at that time one of the greatest kings in the history of Ethiopia menelik II who unified all of Ethiopia and so when the Italians invaded and they streamed over these Hills behind me menelik II had marched his army all the way up here from Adis Ababa a distance that was roughly equivalent to Napoleon marching across Europe to go attack Russia menik forces surprised and outmaneuvered the Italians and although they lost many soldiers ultimately they won the battle and they maintained the independence of Ethiopia the only country in Africa to stay independent ethopia Italy yeah yeah we came a here comes the rain so let me do this outro real quick because I think this is the best place to do an outro for this video and maybe this entire series about Ethiopia the battle of shows what Ethiopia is capable of when they unite together when you stop being aromos amharas Tans and you start being Ethiopians and that's important Ethiopia you got to remember you're an inspiration for the entire continent many countries around Africa adopted the colors of your flag you inspired an entire religion in Jamaica the African Union is here Ethiopia you're an inspiration you got to remember that you got to stop fighting amongst yourselves come here come here so Ethiopia I wish you all the best and I wish you peace because the sky is the limit once you have that I'll see you not sure where but somewhere else probably somewhere else in Africa when it rains in Ethiopia it rains like this it's like the apocalypse out there

Channel: Sabbatical

Views: 411,537

Keywords: sabbatical, polyglot, tigray, ethiopia, tigray war, tplf, tdf, ethiopia vlog, parts unknown

Id: bZygHl4RBUs

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 16 2024