Guesh Liasanewerk’s family had just gathered to celebrate the birth of his sister’s child four days earlier. Sitting in their home in a rural area outside of the historic Ethiopian city of Axum, they were interrupted by Eritrean soldiers storming in. Within moments, the men, including his 78-year-old father and 17-year-old brother, were executed by gunshots. Amnesty International has called the Axum killings, which took place Nov. 28 and 29, a “massacre”Map locates Axum, Ethiopia.Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel denied the Amnesty International report Friday and called it a fabrication.“Eritrea is outraged and categorically rejects the preposterous accusations leveled against it by Amnesty International in a fallacious report issued today,” he said in a tweet. “It must be underscored that Amnesty made absolutely no attempt to seek any information from Eritrea.”Ethiopia’s minister of foreign affairs posted on its Facebook page that all blame goes to the TPLF. “None other than the TPLF should, therefore, take the primary responsibility for what subsequently unfolded in the region. This outlaw group has been engaged in ambush, assassination, and other criminal activities.”An Eritrean soldier speaking to VOA’s Tigrigna service denied the charges.“We had no aim or goal to target civilians. In fact, our understanding is that the people of Tigray were coming toward us looking for a safe haven or seeking shelter with us,” he said asking that his name not be used.“Even in Axum, there were situations where some people were shooting and some were looting. There were times that required for an appropriate response, but there was nothing that aimed at the civilian population. I am an eyewitness myself. I was there myself,” he said.‘We have a trust deficit’There are others who cast doubt on the accuracy of the report.“I think that it is important to get evidence and to put it forward,” Bronwyn Bruton, the director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center told VOA. “The evidence would hopefully come from investigators going on the ground. But in order to get those investigators on the ground, we have political problems that we need to solve. We have a trust deficit. We have the lingering ghost of TPLF which was the indispensable partner of the U.S. for so many years.”Gallopin said Amnesty International’s methodology in the report was meticulous. Researchers spent 11 days in the Hamdayet refugee registration center in eastern Sudan speaking to witnesses who fled the area. The organization corroborated locations of shelling and burial sites using satellite imagery analyzed by its Crisis Evidence Lab. They have also reviewed videos taken in the area showing evidence of the attacks and were able to geolocate them.“So clearly the casualty figure is very high and this is the highest, the most significant massacre that’s been documented so far in the conflict in Tigray and also the most systematic documentation of violations by Eritrean forces Tigray,” Gallopin said.Gallopin said he fears other abuses are going undocumented due to the difficulty in collecting information.“It’s very important to bear in mind that given the considerable restrictions on access, we don’t have a clear picture of the overall scale of violations. And this could be just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.VOA Tigrigna service’s Tewelde Tesfagabir contributed to the report.  
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