By Michael Georgy
HAMDAYET, Sudan (Reuters) – The young coffee seller said she was separated from her family and friends by an Ethiopian soldier on the Tekeze River, was taken by a road and had an agonizing choice.
“He said, ‘Choose, or I will kill or rape you,'” the 25-year-old told Reuters in Sudan’s Hamdayet refugee camp, where she fled the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
The doctor who treated her when she arrived at the camp in December, Tewadrous Tefera Limeuh, confirmed to Reuters that she had provided pills to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and referred her to a psychotherapist.
“The soldier … forced her to use a gun and raped her,” said Limeuh, who was a Sudanese Red Crescent volunteer, to the woman. “She asked if he had a condom and he said ‘why would I need a condom?'”
Five aid workers from international and Ethiopian aid groups said they had received several similar reports of abuse in Tigray. The United Nations this week called for an end to sexual assault in the region.
Among a “high number” of allegations, there have been particularly disturbing reports of people being forced to rape relatives or have sex in exchange for basic supplies, the Office of the UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflicts said in a statement on Thursday.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and military did not immediately respond to Reuters questions about the rape reports. Ethiopian officials have already denied rights abuses, pointing the finger at the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former ruling party whose forces have accused of insurrection.
“I appeal to all parties involved in hostilities in the Tigray region to commit to a zero-tolerance policy for crimes of sexual violence,” said UN Special Representative Geraldine Boezio in the statement.
Women and girls in refugee camps in Ethiopia appear to have been particularly targeted, and medical centers are under pressure for emergency contraception and tests for sexually transmitted infections, the statement said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify reports of rape. The media was virtually banned from Tigray, aid agencies struggled to gain access, and communications went down for weeks.
UNIFORM ABUSERS
The 25-year-old woman who spoke to Reuters said her attacker was wearing an Ethiopian federal army uniform.
The five aid workers said other women described their alleged aggressors as militant fighters from the Amhara region of Ethiopia or Eritrean soldiers, both allies of Abiy’s troops. Reuters was unable to determine the identity of the woman’s attacker.
A spokeswoman for Abiy, the interim governor of Tigray, the mayor of the regional capital Mekelle, the Eritrean foreign minister and the Ethiopian army spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the rape charges. Reuters was unable to contact TPLF representatives.
“I have no information on this,” Amhara regional spokesman Gizachew Muluneh told Reuters by telephone.
Ethiopia and Eritrea have denied that Eritrean troops are in Ethiopia, contradicting dozens of interviews with eyewitnesses, diplomats and an Ethiopian general.
‘WHY IS A WOMAN RAPED?’
At a meeting of security officials in Mekelle, broadcast on Ethiopian state TV earlier this month, a soldier talked about abuse, even after the city was captured by federal forces.
“I was angry yesterday. Why is a woman raped in the city of Mekelle? It wouldn’t be shocking if it happened during the war … But women were raped yesterday and today when the local police and the federal police are around,” said the soldier, who was not identified.
Local authorities did not immediately respond to efforts to obtain comment on whether any soldiers could be investigated or brought to justice.
Tewadrous, the refugee camp doctor, described two other cases of rape that he handled. A woman, who said she had escaped from the town of Rawyan in Tigray, told of three soldiers she identified as Amhara’s special forces knocking on her door, the doctor said. When she refused entry, they invaded and assaulted her.
A humanitarian worker in the town of Wukro said the victims told how a husband was forced to kneel and watch while his wife was raped by soldiers they identified as Eritreans.
A medical worker in Adigrat said he treated six women who were raped by a group of soldiers and said not to seek help afterwards. They found the courage to perform days later, but there were no drugs to treat them, the doctor said.
In Mekelle, a man was beaten after begging soldiers to stop raping a 19-year-old, according to a medical worker who attended to the two victims. Mekelle’s Elshadai charity said it had prepared 50 beds for rape victims.
(Additional reporting by Nairobi newsroom; text by Andrew Cawthorne; edition by Alexandra Zavis and Nick Tattersall)