A million dead. Still no outrage.
If 1,000 people were killed every day in France, how long before the world intervened? That’s the rate at which people in Tigray were killed during just the first 500 days of the genocide — over 500,000 lives lost. Had this happened to a population the world “decided mattered,” we’d have seen it everywhere: flags as profile pictures, trending hashtags, platforms demanding intervention. It would have stopped.
Instead, it’s been almost six years. The death toll has climbed past a million, and it hasn’t stopped. Just days ago, a drone strike hit a humanitarian aid truck (Sept 20, 2026) — one of several the Ethiopian federal government has carried out this year alone.
My name is Samrawit Silva. I’ve lived in New Hampshire since I moved from Tigray over 20 years ago — meaning these two places are the only homes I’ve ever known. For the past year and a half, I’ve been living in Tigray to better understand the reality on the ground and how I can best serve the people there — work that led me to establish my nonprofit, Natna Children’s Foundation (www.natnacf.org).
I don’t believe most people have turned away because they don’t care. I believe they simply don’t know. But now you do. I’m asking my neighbors here in New Hampshire to reach out to our representatives and urge them to speak out against the drone strikes. Silence has a cost, and Tigray has already paid too much of it.