Many women were “conclusively and without a doubt” raped in the Tigray region, home to Ethiopia’s secret conflict.
The fighting may have left tens of thousands of civilians dead, the country’s minister for women said on Thursday, in a rare government admission of its consequences.
More than 100 women in the largely remote northern region reported being raped amid the four-month conflict between Ethiopian forces and allied fighters – including Eritrean fighters whose presence was denied – and former fugitive leaders from Tigray who had long dominated the government of Ethiopia.
Reports of rape came despite women having few police or health services to report alleged crimes.
“Therefore, there is a possibility that the actual number of cases is higher and more widespread than the reported cases,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a report on 108 alleged rapes in the past two months.
Both sides of the conflict that started in early November see the other as illegitimate after last year’s national elections were postponed because of the coronavirus and Tigray defiantly defended itself.
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Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed once said that no civilians were killed in the conflict, but more recently, he admitted that it “caused a lot of suffering for me personally”.
Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, tried to centralize power in the country in September and would have been furious at Tigray’s decision to hold his own election after national elections were postponed.
Refugees fleeing the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, take a bus to the Village 8 temporary shelter near the Sudan-Ethiopia border in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, December 1, 2020. (Associated Press)
Hailu Kebede, head of foreign affairs for the opposition party Salsay Woyane Tigray, called the war conflict “less documented”, estimating, along with two others, that more than 52,000 civilians have died in recent months.
“The world will apologize to the people of Tigray, but it will be too late,” he told the Associated Press.
Journalists have been barred in the region where communications are irregular, but reports of survivors who escaped paint an unthinkable picture of the atrocities that occur in the region.
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Disturbing reports include complaints of people being forced to rape members of their own families under threat of violence and women forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for basic needs.
“Many, many serious cases of malnutrition” have also been reported in the region, where the vast majority of its 6 million citizens remain inaccessible, the Red Cross said on Wednesday. The organization said thousands could starve to death.
A Tigray woman studying in Europe said Ethiopian soldiers recently arrived in their village with food, but are denying food to families suspected of having links with Tigray fighters.
“If you do not bring your father, your brothers, you will not receive help, you will starve to death,” the woman told the Associated Press after speaking to her sister who lives in Tigray.
She also learned that her uncle and two nephews were killed by Eritrean soldiers during a recent holiday meeting. A local defense association, including witnesses who arrived in cities with telephone service, listed 59 victims in total.
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“I am so ashamed of my government,” shouted the student, speaking on condition of anonymity for the safety of her family. And as it is almost impossible to get in touch with people in the region, she said she is concerned if “someone in my family dies, I will learn about it on Facebook”.
An American nurse who was visiting her family in the border city of Rama estimated that looting of Eritrean soldiers left 1,000 dead.
She managed to fly out of the country and return to her home in Colorado.
If the fight doesn’t end soon, she told the AP, “we will be without a family”.
Edmund DeMarche and The Associated Press, Fox News, contributed to this report.