{ { Infobox civilian attack
| date = 9–10 November 2020 () | title = Mai Kadra massacre | location = Mai Kadra, Tigray Region, Ethiopia | partof = Tigray War | image = File:Funeral services for victims of mass murders in the city of Mai-kadra held at Abu Aregawi Church.png | caption = Funeral service for the massacre in Mai Kadra | map = | map_caption = Location of Mai Kadra in Tigray and Ethiopia | fatalities = 600 to 1,100 (varying estimates) | target = Locals and migrant workers (mostly Amhara per OHCHR, Amnesty, EHRCO and Agence France-Presse; mostly Amhara per EHRC;Tigrayans per Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Financial Times) ) | type = Mass killing, ethnic cleansing | perps = * Tigrayan youths and police (per Amnesty, OHCHR, EHRC, EHRCO) forces loyal to TPLF (per Amnesty, OHCHR, EHRC, Agence France-Presse, Financial Times) Amhara militias (per Financial Times, Associated Press, Vice) Ethiopian National Defense Force (per Associated Press, Agence France-Presse)}} The Mai Kadra massacre was a massacre and ethnic cleansing carried out during the Tigray War on 9–10 November 2020 in the town of Mai Kadra in Welkait (a disputed area between the Amhara and Tigray Regions) in northwestern Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border. Responsibility was attributed to a pro-TPLF youth group and forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the EHRC-OHCHR Tigray Investigation, preliminary investigations by Amnesty International, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), and interviews conducted in Mai Kadra by Agence France-Presse. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and EHRC reported that at least 5 Tigrayans were killed in Mai Kadra by Amhara militas such as Fano in retaliation. Tigrayan refugees in Sudan told multiple news outlets that Tigrayans in Mai Kadra were targeted by either Amhara militias, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), or both.
The killings took place amidst an armed conflict between the TPLF-led regional government and the federal government. The killings began before the ENDF troops entered the town. The victims have been described as civilians, many of whom were day laborers hailing from neighboring Amhara Region.
The total death toll remains unclear, but according to Amnesty International, "likely hundreds" were killed. Two videos, which were analyzed by Amnesty International to prove that the massacre had taken place, show dozens of corpses with injuries caused by bladed weapons, like machetes. According to the EHRC, which described the massacre as a "widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population" at least 600 people were killed; EHRCO counted 1100 deaths. Most of the victims were Amhara according to Amnesty International, OHCHR, EHRC, and EHRCO investigations, but there were Tigrayan victims as well.
Background
Throughout 2019 and 2020, tensions progressively increased between the Ethiopian federal government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the local government of the Tigray Region, led by Chief Administrator Debretsion Gebremichael, over allegations that members of the ruling Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which was the dominant force in Ethiopian politics after the fall of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, were being unfairly targeted for prosecution by the central government, and misgivings of the Eritrea–Ethiopia peace deal, which the TPLF viewed as endangering its security.
Federal-state relations deteriorated considerably after the region held local elections in September 2020, which the TPLF claimed to have won in a landslide, despite the Ethiopian government having postponed elections until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the elections, both sets of governments proclaimed the other illegitimate and illegal; the federal government maintaining that the regional elections had been extra-constitutional and neither free nor fair, and the regional government insisting that the federal government did not uphold the constitution which stated that elections should occur every 5 years and that its mandate had expired, rendering its authority null and void.