ADIGRAT, Ethiopia (Reuters) – The young mother was trying to come home with food for her two children when she said soldiers pulled her off a minibus in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, claiming it was overloaded.
It was the start of an 11-day ordeal in February, during which she says she was repeatedly raped by 23 soldiers who forced nails, a rock and other objects into her vagina and threatened her with a knife.
Doctors showed the blood-stained stone and two 3-inch nails to Reuters, which they said had been removed from her body.
The 27-year-old woman is among hundreds who reported being subjected to horrific sexual violence by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers after fighting broke out in the mountainous northern region of Ethiopia in November, doctors said.
Some women have been detained for long periods, days or weeks in a row, says Dr Fasika Amdeselassie, the top public health official for the interim government appointed by the government in Tigray.
“Women are being held in sexual slavery,” Fasika told Reuters. “The culprits must be investigated.”
Reports of rape have been circulating here for months. But Fasika’s allegation, based on women’s reports, is the first time an Ethiopian official – in this case a top health official in the region – has made an allegation of sexual slavery in the Tigray conflict.
In addition, eight other doctors at five public hospitals told Reuters that most rape victims described their attackers as Ethiopian government soldiers or Eritrean troops. It is more common for women to report sexual violence by Eritrean soldiers, the doctors said.
The Eritreans helped Ethiopia’s central government fight the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in the conflict plaguing the Horn of Africa nation.
Collectively, the descriptions paint the most detailed picture to date of the sexual violence against women in Tigray and the alleged involvement of the military in it.
Most people interviewed for this article did not want to be identified. They said they feared retaliation, including possible violence, by soldiers guarding the hospitals and villages.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed acknowledged in a speech to parliament on March 23 that “atrocities are being committed by raping women” and promised that the perpetrators would be punished. He did not identify the alleged perpetrators.
He then said for the first time that Eritrean soldiers had entered the conflict in Tigray in support of the Ethiopian government after the TPLF attacked military bases in the region in the early hours of November 4. Ethiopia’s government has denied this in the past and the Eritrean government still does not acknowledge the presence of their troops. The TPLF was the dominant force in the central government when Eritrea waged a bloody border war with Ethiopia a generation ago.
Neither the Ethiopian nor the Eritrean governments responded to Reuters’ questions about specific issues raised by women and their doctors, or about the accusation of sexual slavery. No charges were filed by civilian or military prosecutors against any soldiers. However, officials in both countries have stressed that their governments have no tolerance for sexual violence – a point that Abiy’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum said the prime minister had repeatedly repeated in talks with military leaders.
The alleged sexual violence has attracted international attention.
Billene said the United Nations, the African Union and Ethiopia’s state-appointed human rights commission were authorized to conduct joint investigations into alleged abuse by all sides in the conflict. This includes the ‘criminal clique’, she said, referring to the TPLF.
An Ethiopian military spokesman and the head of a government task force on the Tigray crisis did not respond to phone calls and text messages. Reuters could not reach military leaders in either country.
Asked about reports that Eritrean troops had committed rapes in Tigray and kept women in sexual slavery, the country’s intelligence minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, accused the TPLF activists of ‘sympathetically’ coaching them to create false testimonies.
“All the fabricated stories – which are foreign to our culture and laws – are being spread to cover up the crimes of the TPLF that started the war,” he told Reuters in a written response.
Reuters could not reach a TPLF spokesman.
RECORDS OF ABUSE
Fasika, the health official, said at least 829 cases of sexual assault had been reported at the five hospitals since the conflict in Tigray began.
These cases were probably ‘the tip of the iceberg’, Fasika said. Rape is underreported here in Ethiopia because it carries a great stigma. Most health institutions in the region are also no longer functioning, and travel between towns remains dangerous, he said.
Most of the women who emerged were pregnant or sustained serious physical injuries as a result of the rapes, Fasika said.
Reuters interviewed 11 women who said they had been raped by soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia or both. Four said they were abducted, taken to military camps and in gang rape, in some cases with other women. The women did not know the camp names, but said they were located near Mekelle and the towns of Idaga Hamus, Wukro and Sheraro.
Five other women said they were detained in countries or abandoned homes for up to six days. And two said they were raped in their own homes.
Reuters could not independently verify their accounts. However, everyone told similar stories that they were beaten and cruel. Healthcare providers confirmed that the 11 women’s injuries matched the events they described, and they showed Reuters medical records for three of the women outlining their conditions.
Healthcare providers also shared details on nine other cases of sexual assault, including the trials of two 14-year-old girls.
Although the Ethiopian government declared victory over the TPLF in November, fighting continues in some areas, and medical workers say new rapes are being reported to the region’s health facilities every day.
“This is done to dishonor the women, to break their pride,” said a doctor at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, referring to the brutality of the attacks and humiliation of victims. ‘It’s not for sexual gratification. The rapes are to punish Tigray. ”
‘TELL MY STORY’
The 27-year-old mother said uniformed soldiers from Eritrea pulled her off a minibus on February 6 on her way from Mekelle to the city of Adigrat. They tied her up and marched through fields to a bush camp. After 11 days of rape and beatings, she said, the soldiers forced nails, cotton, plastic bags and a rock into her vagina, leaving her alone in the woods.
Villagers found her unconscious and took her to a nearby hospital.
She said she was still bleeding from serious internal injuries and could not control her urine, walk without a crutch or sit for long periods of time. One leg was broken, she said.
She also described another type of pain: in the hospital, she has no way of talking to her 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter because the Eritrean soldiers took her cell phone. She left the children with her mother to look for food and never returned. At the time, the family had less than a week’s worth of bread.
“I know nothing when they are dead or alive,” she said. “The enemy destroyed my life.”
A 32-year-old mother in Mekelle told Reuters that soldiers removed her from the same minibus at the end of February. They were dressed in Ethiopian uniforms, she said, but spoke with an Eritrean accent and had traditional facial adornment typical of the neighboring country. She said they shot and killed her 12-year-old son in front of her, then took her to a camp where she was detained along with other female prisoners and repeatedly raped for ten days.
“Tell me my story,” she said. ‘It’s happening to women out there right now. I want it to end with me. ”
According to a 28-year-old house cleaner, soldiers grabbed her from a street in Mekelle on the afternoon of February 10 and took her to a field outside a military base where she was raped by more than ten men wearing Ethiopian or Eritrean uniforms.
She wiped away the tears, saying that soldiers had been drinking with her during a two-week ordeal and mocking her when they assaulted her. She escaped when her kidnappers were distracted by gunfire, she said.
SHOT FOR RESISTANCE
The government has put together a task force that is separate from the human rights commission to investigate the reports of sexual violence. The chief, Mebrihit Assefa, said the body included representatives from the local health bureau, the attorney general’s office and the federal police.
The task force plans to set up five centers over which rape survivors can submit reports to law enforcement and receive medical and psychosocial support.
“Our prosecutors (and) police officers are there to investigate all crimes committed, including sexual violence,” said Awol Sultan, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.
He did not respond to questions about the women claiming to have been raped during captivity, or that prosecutors were linked to the Eritrean or Ethiopian army. The results of the criminal investigations will be made public on an unspecified date, he said.
Abera Nigus, head of Tigray’s justice bureau, said the legal process is likely to be complicated because most courts do not operate in Tigray, and many rape victims are unable to identify their attackers.
Knowing that their rapists were still free also discouraged women from seeking help, doctors said.
Many of the women treated at hospitals had vaginal and anal tears, sexually transmitted diseases and injuries that made them incontinent, said the doctor at Ayder Hospital, an obstetrician-gynecologist. The doctor shared notes of 11 cases the hospital treated with women raped by soldiers.
According to hospital notes, one woman was gang-raped on three separate occasions.
Another was five months pregnant when she was raped, the notes read. Two 14-year-old girls were sexually assaulted in front of their families. One girl had a hand and foot amputated.
She was shot because she resisted her attacker.
Reporting by Katherine Houreld. Written by Silvia Aloisi. Edited by Alexandra Zavis and Julie Marquis