Communications cut across Tigray; Tigray TV struck by drone

What we see

Two sources that do not depend on each other place a drone strike on the Tigray TV building on 27 September: a military source speaking to Mada Masr, and AFP's own caption on a photograph it published with its 2 October report.

What it is consistent with

A wire agency asserting something in its own voice over its own image is a stronger form of statement than an attributed claim, because the agency carries the error itself. Combined with the Mada Masr account it moves this from a single anonymous claim to a corroborated one. Neither source gives a time, and we have not seen the photograph or any confirmation that the channel went off air.

What we see

Al Jazeera's named Ethiopia bureau chief describes six to seven million people living amid electricity cuts, internet blackouts and a total lack of communications. AFP independently describes significant communications disruptions as an obstacle to its own verification.

What it is consistent with

The blackout is the single most important fact on this site, because it is the reason nearly every claim here carries a caveat. When a region of that size cannot be reached by phone or internet, the only accounts that escape are from parties with a reason to shape them. Readers should treat the scarcity of independent confirmation across our records as a product of this, not as evidence that nothing is happening.

What we see

A named church leader, the Eparch of Adigrat, says publicly that his communities are completely isolated, that communications are blocked and that they have no contact with anyone. Adigrat is in eastern Tigray, well away from Mekelle and from the southern front.

What it is consistent with

Every other account of the blackout in this record is anonymous or is an agency describing its own difficulties. This one is a named individual speaking on the record about his own area, and it places the blackout in a part of Tigray none of the other sources covers. Taken with the Al Jazeera and AFP accounts it indicates the blackout is regional rather than local to the fighting. His message had to be carried out with UN assistance to reach a news agency, which is itself a demonstration of the thing he is describing.

What we see

The federal government announced on 21 September that Tigrai TV was suspended indefinitely and barred other outlets from broadcasting its reports. The drone strike on the building followed on 27 September, six days later. A journalist describes the station as off-air after the attack, with about 400 employees and windows blown out.

What it is consistent with

This changes how the strike should be read, and corrects an implication in our own earlier wording. We recorded the strike as having halted the broadcast. The broadcast had already been banned by government order six days earlier, so the strike cannot be what took the station off air in any simple sense — though a station under a broadcast ban may still have been transmitting, and the sources do not establish whether it was. It also places the strike in a sequence: an order to stop broadcasting, then a strike on the building that broadcasts. That sequence is suggestive, and it is not evidence of intent, which nobody has established.

What we see

AP reports some connectivity restored on Sunday 4 October, and in the same report interviews a named Mekelle resident by telephone. Severe disruption is still described as the general condition.

What it is consistent with

The blackout is no longer total, at least in Mekelle and at least intermittently. The telephone interview is the stronger evidence of the two: it is a demonstration rather than a description. This does not establish that service has returned across Tigray, and the restoration coincides with federal forces taking the city, which is worth noting without drawing a conclusion from it — we have no evidence either way about who restored what, or why.