(AG) – The controversial source of CNN’s latest report in Tigray, Stalin Gebreselassie, once claimed the TPLF fighters had “zero casualties” during the conflict, according to a Tigrayan whistleblower. Stalin’s unrealistic statement on the death toll figure was one of his many bizarre comments, including telling CNN’s Sudanese journalist Nima Elbagir that Ethiopian soldiers are sending “self-incriminating videos” of massacres they committed.

Stalin Gebreselassie is a journalist of the Tigray Media House (TMH), formed by supporters of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). His improbable claim that the TPLF has not lost even a single fighter might appear unusual, but analysts say it is consistent with the Tigrayan narrative since the conflict began, which attempts to portray all TPLF war combatants as civilians. 

At the end of January, Tigrayan affiliates of the TPLF lamented the loss of over 50,000 of its fighters; however days later, they sent out press release to international media outlets claiming “52,000 civilian deaths,” in order to advance the “Tigray Genocide” narrative.

This week, Stalin’s bizarre statements continued as he shocked even his own supporters, by declaring that TPLF forces recently “destroyed three Ethiopian tanks with one bullet.” 

Uniform politics

The leader of Tigray Media House (TMH), Alula Solomon, is also known to disseminate gruesome misleading photos that are not from Tigray, and other conspiracy theories, including his new claim that the whole Eritrean army has recently changed uniform. 

Various TMH operatives began to peddle similar theory to divert from credible reports of the TPLF-owned Almeda clothing factory mass producing Eritrean and Ethiopian army uniforms. 

TMH and other TPLF supporters have also used similar tactic when Amnesty International (AI) accused TPLF’s militia for massacring Amhara civilians at the northern Maikadra town in November. According to Getty Images photographer Jemal Countess, several Amhara survivors who fled to Sudan were pushed out of the Sudanese camps by Tigrayan fighters who later arrived to the same camps as refugees. The account by Getty Images was also corroborated by witnesses who spoke to ESAT media and revealed that non-Tigrayan refugees in Sudan were being harassed and removed from the camps in the early days of the conflict. 

Since then, all Western journalists who eventually interviewed pro-TPLF refugees in these Sudanese camps began reporting alternative facts that denied the atrocities against ethnic Amharas in Maikadra, and instead depicted only Tigrayans as the lone victims. While CNN’s journalist Nima Elbagir might have been the latest victim of this coordinated misinformation campaign, the earliest victim was UK’s Telegraph journalist Will Brown who reported solely from the point of view of Tigrayans who fled to Sudanese camps.

It is unknown if the latest accounts by Stalin published on Western media are accurate since CNN itself has admitted it was not able to independently verify who exactly were the perpetrators. There was also a major inconsistency with how the video was retrieved. Stalin told CNN’s Nima Elbagir that an “Ethiopian army whistleblower” sold him the clip; however Stalin’s colleague at the TMH, Alula Solomon previously said TPLF forces found the video from a phone belonging to a dead Ethiopian soldier.

Average Tigrayans Suffer

According to the Tigrayan whistleblower who knows the inside strategies of TMH, this satellite media is allegedly broadcasting ethnic animosity to its audience in Tigray and disseminates the coordinated TPLF narrative to Tigrayans worldwide. He also claimed Stalin Gebreselassie and other TPLF operatives who assisted CNN’s Nina Elbagir are currently pressuring her and other Western journalists to criticize the independent (EHRC) Human rights commission, which has been praised in 2020 for its professionalism and for highlighting abuses by the Ethiopian government. The independently-run EHRC has been appointed to work with the United Nations (UN), but TPLF supporters fear it will collect evidence from diverse sources, both from Tigrayans and non-Tigrayans. 

In the background of these wars of narratives and media, average Tigrayans continue to suffer. The insurgency continues to restrict delivery of humanitarian aid in some remote parts of Tigray. And sexual violence has also spiked drastically since thousands of criminal prisoners in November were released by TPLF in central Tigray, an area that already had the highest rate of rape in the country pre-war.