Members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armed forces raped hundreds of women and girls in the war-torn province of Tigray, turned many into sex slaves and mutilated them, according to a report by the non-governmental organization Amnesty International released Wednesday.
The report, based on interviews with 63 victims, documents a barrage of atrocities that Ethiopian authorities have confirmed they are investigating; to date, at least three soldiers have been convicted of rape and another 25 are facing prosecution for “sexual violence and rape”.
Surviving women were reported to have been gang-raped while held captive for weeks, others to have been raped in front of their families, some using sharp objects, causing them serious, “permanent” genital injuries, in some cases “infrequent” , emphasizes Amnesty International.
One of the victims typically said that “I was raped one after another (…). I do not know if they realized that I was pregnant. “I do not know if they realized I was human.”
“It is clear that rape and sexual violence were used as a weapon of war to inflict lasting physical and psychological trauma on women and girls in Tigray. “Some of them were subjected to barbaric treatment in order to be dishonored, to lose their human status”, summed up the general secretary of Amnesty, Anies Kalamar.
“The seriousness and extent of the sexual crimes committed are particularly shocking, they are probably war crimes and potential crimes against humanity,” she added.
In recent months, Agence France-Presse has interviewed several women who were told they had been gang-raped by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers.
War broke out in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray last November when Prime Minister Abi Ahmed sent a federal army to overthrow the local government, which belonged to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). According to the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the operation was a response to attacks on federal army bases by the TPLF.
The generalization of the conflict has tragic human costs: according to the UN, 400,000 people are facing famine in Tigray, while humanitarian aid arrives with the dropper.
According to Amnesty International, the perpetrators of the atrocities in Tigray are said to be mainly men from the army of neighboring Eritrea, which supports the current Ethiopian prime minister, members of the security forces and paramilitaries from the Amhara province, which borders Tigray.
More than twenty women told Amnesty that they were only raped by Eritrean soldiers, others said Erythraeans and Ethiopian soldiers acted together.
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“We were raped and deprived of food,” one of the victims, 21, told the organization, stressing that she had been detained for 40 days. “We were about thirty women; we were all raped.”
According to Amnesty International, treatment centers in Tigray recorded 1,288 cases of violence against women victims from February to April 2021. Medical officials estimate that many women chose not to go to see a doctor.
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