Eritrea Online / Dehai Homepage
Ethiopian soldiers, who were captured or surrendered during heavy fighting last month, have spoken to the Eritrean News Agency about their experiences in the Ethiopian army.
All the captured soldiers said that when the invasion began, their officers stood behind them and ordered them into battle calling up company after company. Soldiers said the attack was designed with a narrow axis to prevent soldiers escaping through the flanks. Soldiers attempting to retreat were shot by officers in the back line. The soldiers said they were shocked by the amount of corpses of fellow soldiers they trampled over and said they felt lucky to have succeeded in coming out alive.
The POWs, many of whom were forced conscripts, said they had been promised a monthly salary of 600 Birr each, but had received little or no money at all. According to many of the soldiers, TPLF officials forced young school students to the front with a promise of regular salaries and an assurance that they would not have to fight. Eritrean forces discovered the body of a thirteen-year-old boy among the corpses of Ethiopian soldiers. His pockets revealed a letter from his mother and his entry papers into the seventh grade.
One of the soldiers captured by the Eritrean Defense Forces was, in fact, a young Sudanese student who, along with friends, was taken from his town inside Sudan along the border by Ethiopian officials. James Lual Mokacha said he and his friends were on their way to school when the soldiers accosted them and took them to Mekele. He said they were told that they would have to join the army to fight Eritrea but would be returned to their homes after Eritrea had been defeated. The Sudanese youth were separated and James fears his friends died in the attack.