The injury-plagued life, and now death, of Asmelash Woldeselassie highlights the brutality and cyclical nature of conflicts in Ethiopia’s mountainous Tigray region.

Having joined the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) around the time of its formation in 1975, Asmelash lost his eyesight when he was bombed in his hideout in the Imba Alaje mountain during the war that ended with the guerrilla movement marching into Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, to seize power from the notorious Mengistu Haile Mariam regime in 1991.