Eritrean troops accused of raping in Tigray war in Ethiopia

The young mother of two was walking with her sister near a deserted highway in northern Ethiopia last month when five men forced them into a pickup truck and drove to a small building with a metal roof.

The women recognized their prisoners by their accents and military uniforms: they were soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, who had joined Ethiopian troops in months of fighting against government forces in the Tigray border region.

Mehrawit, 27, was separated from her sister and locked in a room with only a thin, dirty mattress. For two weeks, she said, Eritrean soldiers repeatedly raped her, broke her spine and pelvis and left her crumpled on the floor. One day she counted 15 soldiers who took turns taking her to sexually assault her for eight hours, and her cries of pain were suppressed by their laughter.

“I was lame,” she recalled from a hospital bed in the regional capital of Mekele, days after she escaped. “I could see their faces. I could hear them giggling. But after a while, I no longer felt the pain. ‘

Her report is one of the few that emerges from the dark conflict in Tigray, where human rights groups say pro-government forces sexually abuse citizens in a remote highland region, far from the world’s gaze.

Tens of thousands were reportedly killed, many more fled their homes and some survived by eating leaves in mountain villages cut off from telephone and internet access. The United Nations has warned that the region of 6 million is heading for a humanitarian disaster. More than 60,000 have fled to refugee camps across the border in Sudan.

The suffering is compounded by reports of gang rapes and other sexual violence by pro-government forces acting almost impunity.

While Ethiopia is fighting to repel Tigray’s control of the ruling party, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has banned journalists and most humanitarian groups from the region, rejected allegations of abuse and denied – despite credible evidence – that Eritrean forces entered. country. Eritrea’s government also denies involvement in the fighting.

Because local paramilitary forces in Tigrayan mostly retreated to mountainous areas, Ethiopian and allied troops gained control of population centers, including Mekele, where they established a transitional government. As some communication links are restored, human rights groups have begun compiling reports of women showing signs of sexual violence.

Doctors at the main hospital in Mekele say survivors of rape are injured and arrive in tears. More women are seeking counseling, testing for sexually transmitted infections, emergency contraception and abortions. Girls as young as 12 are among the attacked, researchers say.

“Increasing reports of rape and other sexual violence in the Tigray region over the past few weeks add another layer to the worrying abuse of civilians since the start of the conflict,” Laetitia Bader, director of Horn of Africa, told Human Rights Watch said.

“These reports bring new urgency to the need for a UN-led fact-finding mission to the region, which should also include experts in sexual violence and mental health, to push for credible, just and safe justice for survivors.”

Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy, said last month that she was “very concerned about serious allegations of sexual violence” in Tigray. She cited reports of individuals being forced to rape family members or to have sex with members of the military in exchange for basic goods.

Although Patten did not identify the alleged perpetrators, human rights groups accuse pro-government forces, including Ethiopian and Eritrean troops and paramilitaries from the Amhara region.

Mehrawit, whose full name is withheld under a Times policy of not identifying survivors of rape, said the Eritrean soldiers did not hide their identities and their actions in retaliation against Tigray, whose ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Ethiopia has led for almost all of the past three decades.

The TPLF was the leader of a 1998 to 2000 war with Eritrea, a former Ethiopian state in which tens of thousands of soldiers died, many in brutal trench warfare. The conflict ended with Ethiopian troops retaining control of the controversial border town of Badme in defiance of a peace agreement.

When Abiy entered service in 2018, he agreed to implement the peace agreement and ceded the city to Eritrea, ending one of Africa’s longest running conflicts. His efforts earned the 44-year-old leader the Nobel Peace Prize.

Abiy and the Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki – of which the small isolation of the small Red Sea country sometimes yields comparisons with North Korea – now has a shared opponent in the TPLF, which has lost political influence but retains a well-trained paramilitary force, estimated at 250,000 troops. In November, after limiting months of disputes between Tigray and the government in Addis Ababa, he blamed the TPLF for an attack on a federal military base and launched air and ground attacks across the region.

It has trapped women like Mehrawit in a dangerous landscape of fresh bloodshed mixed with grievances from the past. She said she exclaimed to her Eritrean abductors, ‘Are you not our brothers? Why are you so cruel? ‘

One replied: “You killed our family in the war and took Badme from us. So you deserve to be punished. ”

Her ordeal began in early January when Eritrean troops arrived in her village of Kerestber, about 120 km north of Mekele. Her family, including her father, a 24-year-old sister, aunt and two children aged 7 and 5, sought safety from family members in a nearby village.

But there was little to eat. On the morning of January 9, she and her sister ventured to Kerestber to collect crops and inspect their home.

When she stepped back from Kerestber, she said, the Eritrean troops stopped them. Her report was confirmed by a counselor at a rehabilitation center who repeatedly interviewed Mehrawit, as well as medical records from Ayder Referral Hospital where she was treated. Staff from both facilities spoke about anonymity to protect them from government retaliation.

Mehrawit said that when she and her sister arrived at the Eritreans’ temporary camp, they saw eight other Tigraian women being detained. That day, five soldiers took turns raping her. Another day they brought her sister to her room and made Mehrawit watch her being raped.

For 15 days, Mehrawit was given almost nothing to eat. Her injuries caused her to be unable to walk. The Eritreans brought more and more women to the camp and started teasing her, saying that she would soon be ‘thrown away’.

“Next time we will bring younger and virgin Tigraian women,” said one.

The soldiers finally loosened control. On the night of January 23, she crawled out of the camp and came to a highway, where she fainted. Her memory remains unclear, but she can remember that a motorcycle driver saw her lying next to the asphalt and brought her to Mekele.

A doctor who treated her in the hospital said injuries to her spine and pelvis meant she would struggle to walk again.

“She has to sit in a wheelchair,” he said. “But most of all, her psychological trauma is serious.”

Mehrawit had no contact with her sister, and she is worried that she may still be in Eritrean custody. Her children and other family members remain out of the phone range. She was transferred to a non-governmental center for survivors of sexual abuse, where a nurse said she was suffering from nightmares that soldiers would climb through the windows and attack her.

“There are days when she begs me not to leave her alone,” the nurse said.

In daily sessions with a therapist, Mehrawit often calls out her sister’s name. Each time, she wonders about the women she left behind in the camp, the therapist said.

Ethiopian officials have publicly denied allegations of rape and other abuses. The interim head of Tigray’s social affairs department, Abrha Desta, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to a person who was present and spoke on condition of anonymity, Muna Ahmed, the deputy federal minister of women’s affairs, said in a closed meeting in Mekele last week.

The UN’s World Food Program this week said the Ethiopian government had agreed to increase access for aid workers in an effort to speed up the delivery of food aid to 1 million people.

According to humanitarian organizations, armed groups have looted and looted medical facilities in Tigray, making it difficult for survivors of rape and other crimes to access emergency care. Many others are afraid to come forward, for fear of punishment by the federal forces that increasingly rule the region.

A few days after Mehrawit spoke to a Times reporter for this article, she received a call from an unknown number. The therapist knew that she had accused Eritrean soldiers of rape. He warned her not to tell her story again.

Special correspondent Lucy Kassa reports from Addis Ababa and Times staff writer Bengali from Singapore.