Many women have been raped “beyond a shadow of a doubt” in the Tigray region, home to the covert conflict in Ethiopia.
The fighting may have killed tens of thousands of civilians, the country’s women’s minister said on Thursday in a rare confession from the government of its consequences.
More than 100 women in the largely remote northern region have reported being raped in the four-month conflict between Ethiopian forces and Allied fighters – including Eritrean fighters denied presence – and the fugitive former leaders of Tigray who have long been the Ethiopian government. dominated.
The rape allegations have come out despite women having few police or health facilities to report suspected crimes.
“Therefore, there is a possibility that the actual number of cases is higher and more widespread than those reported,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a report of the 108 alleged rapes in the past two months.
Both sides in the conflict that began in early November consider the other illegal after last year’s national elections were postponed due to the coronavirus and Tigray defiantly held its own.
MORE THAN 100 KILLED ALONG ETHNIC LINES IN ETHIOPIA
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed once said that no civilian had been killed in the conflict, but more recently admitted that it had “caused me a great deal of suffering personally”.
Abiy, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, tried to centralize power in the country in September and was reportedly outraged by Tigray’s decision to hold his own elections after the national elections were postponed.
Refugees fleeing conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region ride a bus to 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 Salsay Woyane Tigray, called the conflict the “least documented” war and, along with two others, estimated 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 are excluded from the region where communication is patchy, but reports of survivors who have escaped paint an unimaginable picture of the atrocities taking place in the region.
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Disturbing reports include people being forced to rape members of their own families under threat of violence and women being forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for basic necessities.
“Many, many severe cases of malnutrition” have also been reported in the region where the vast majority of the 6 million citizens remain inaccessible, the Red Cross said Wednesday. The organization said thousands could starve.
A Tigray woman studying in Europe said Ethiopian soldiers had recently come to her village with food, but withheld it from families suspected of having ties to Tigray fighters.
“If you don’t bring your father, your brothers, you don’t get help, you will starve,” the woman told the Associated Press after speaking to her sister who lives in the Tigray.
She also learned that her uncle and two cousins were murdered by Eritrean soldiers at a recent holiday gathering. A local advocacy group, relying on witnesses who have reached cities with telephone services, has claimed a total of 59 victims.
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“I’m so ashamed of my government,” exclaimed the student, speaking on condition of anonymity for the safety of her family. And since it’s nearly impossible to get in touch with people in the region, she said she’s worried if “someone from my family dies, I’ll find out more from Facebook.”
An American nurse who visited her family in the border town of Rama estimated that 1,000 people had died in the looting of Eritrean soldiers.
She was able to fly out of the country and return to her home in Colorado.
If the fighting doesn’t end soon, she told the AP, “we will be left without families.”
Fox News’ Edmund DeMarche and The Associated Press contributed to this report.