[11] 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.

[1][2][3][5][12] 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.

[13] 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.

[19] The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission published its preliminary findings on 24 November, reporting that a few days before the attack, local militia (or "special force") and the police barred all exit points from Mai Kadra.

[5][a] According to survivors, this was done to prevent calls for help or other communications once the attack had started, as the federal government had already shut off Internet and mobile services to the region, meaning Ethiopian SIM cards did not work.

[5][20] After this incident kebele youths, in groups of 20 to 30 each, accompanied by 3 or 4 members of the local police and militia, went house-to-house killing people who had already been identified as ethnic Amharas or other minorities, "beating them with batons/sticks, stabbing them with knives, machetes and hatchets and strangling them with ropes", as well as looting properties.

[5] Some people managed to survive by hiding in rafters, pretending to be dead, or successfully evading security forces and fleeing into the rural hinterland.

[20] One woman first hid 13 people in her home, before leading them to a nearby farm, and another was struck by the youths with a machete while trying to separate them from a man who had been lit on fire.

The killings continued until the early hours of 10 November, when the perpetrators fled the town to avoid the advancing forces of the Ethiopian Army, which arrived late that morning.

[21] A Tigrayan student interviewed by the Financial Times after fleeing to Sudan, Abrahaley Menasew, had a head wound that he attributed to Amhara militias attacking him in Mai Kadra.

[6] Messah Geidi, a refugee from Mai Kadra, attributed the killings to the ENDF, stating, "the army slaughtered the young people like sheep".

[26] Amnesty International Director for East and Southern Africa, Deprose Muchena, urged the government to restore all communications to Tigray as an act of accountability and transparency for its military operations in the region and allow unfettered access to humanitarian organizations and human rights monitors.

On 10 November 2020, as the ENDF and ASF approached the town, most members of Samri, local police, and militia responsible for the killings, as well as Tigrayans who feared retaliation, fled across the border to Sudan.

[5] The EHRC report found that a massacre of civilians did indeed take place on 9 November, by a Tigrayan youth group aided by the then local administration security forces.

It is now an urgent priority that victims are provided redress and rehabilitation, and that perpetrators involved directly or indirectly at all levels are held to account before the law".

It drew similar conclusions to those of the EHRC, but estimated the number of victims as 1100 and clarified that the term Samri referred to the neighborhood where most of the youths directly responsible for the massacre were from.

[3] In mid-December 2020, the Ethiopian Federal Police (EFP) detained Enkuayehu Mesele in a refugee camp and Tesfaye Kebede, Abadit Abrha and three others in Addis Ababa, on suspicion of involvement in the massacre.