On November 3, 2020, as the United States was preoccupied with the presidential election, Mearg “Magi” Tareke had just returned home to Washington, D.C. from the Pennsylvania resort where she had been filming season 25 of The Bachelor.

Excited to tell her mother about her experience as the first Ethiopian contestant ever to appear on ABC’s blockbuster reality dating show, Tareke picked up the phone but couldn’t get through. It was her first clue something was wrong back home in Tigray.