Maybe when I do, you'll come with me. So we exercised caution. But not from 30 miles away. We got within 30 feet. Right up to the blue and white U.N. Peacekeeping vehicles, which straddle a line in the dirt that cost 20,000 lives to draw.
Devastation lies on both sides of that line, as does blame.
Thanks to mountainous terrain and rich marble deposits, stone is the primary building block in Tigray, rather than the wood and mud used in the rest of the country. Closer to Zelembassa, we passed encampments of internally displaced people, refugees from towns shelled or occupied during the war, their blue plastic sheeting the only color against the gray of rock and rubble. Formerly a community of 20,000, Zelembassa was occupied by Eritrea for two years, and destroyed in the struggle for control of the town. As if those who lived on that rocky patch didn't already struggle enough just to survive. As if man's cruelty were needed to punctuate nature's harshness.