The photographs began to surface by morning.
Grainy prints, smuggled out of the Tigray highlands by foreign journalists and Red Cross volunteers, appeared first in the Paris Le Matin, then in the Times of London, and later that afternoon in the Chicago Defender.
One image stood out above all others.
A church, its walls collapsed inward, with two priests lying facedown in front one missing a leg, the other with hands bound behind his back.
Written in Italian on the adjacent stone wall: "Per l'Impero."
For the Empire.
The world did not turn away this time.
In London, the newspapers sold out by noon.
Outside the Parliament, protesters gathered with signs reading "Sanctions Now" and "Italy Murders with British Oil."
An MP from the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, raised the matter in the Commons:
"If this is civilization," he said, slamming the paper against the dispatch box, "then God help us all."
