The young mother was trying to get home with food for her two children when she said soldiers pulled her from a minivan in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and claimed it was overloaded.
It was the start of an 11-day ordeal in February, in which she says she was repeatedly raped by 23 soldiers who forced nails, a stone and other objects into her vagina and threatened her with a knife.
Doctors showed Reuters the blood-stained stone and two three-inch nails that they had removed from her body.
The 27-year-old woman is one of hundreds who have reported being subjected to horrific sexual assaults by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers after fighting broke out in the mountainous north of Ethiopia in November, doctors said.
Some women have been detained for extended periods of time, days or weeks at a time, said Dr. Fasika Amdeselassie, the top public health official for the government-appointed interim administration in Tigray.
“Women are being held in sexual slavery,” Fasika told Reuters. “The perpetrators must be investigated.”
Reports of rape have been circulating for months. But Fasika’s claim, based on women’s reports, is the first time that an Ethiopian official – in this case, a top regional health official – has made an allegation of sexual slavery in connection with the Tigray conflict.
In addition, eight other doctors in five public hospitals told Reuters that most rape victims described their attackers as Ethiopian government soldiers or Eritrean troops. It was more common for women to report sexual violence by Eritrean soldiers, the doctors said.
The Eritreans have helped Ethiopia’s central government combat the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in the conflict ravaging the Horn of Africa.
Taken together, the descriptions provide the most detailed picture to date of the sexual violence against women in Tigray and the alleged military involvement.
Most of the people interviewed for this article declined to be identified. They said they feared reprisals, including possible violence, by soldiers guarding hospitals and cities.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed acknowledged in a speech to parliament on March 23 that “atrocities were committed by raping women” and promised the perpetrators would be punished. He has not identified the alleged perpetrators.
He then said for the first time that Eritrean soldiers had entered the Tigray conflict in support of the Ethiopian government after the TPLF attacked military bases in the region in the early hours of November 4. the government still does not recognize 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 have responded to Reuters inquiries about specific cases raised by women and their doctors, or about the allegation of sexual slavery. No charges against soldiers have been announced by civil or military prosecutors. However, officials in both countries stressed that their governments have no tolerance for sexual assault – a point Abiy’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, said the prime minister has recently reiterated in discussions 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 have the power to jointly investigate alleged violations by all parties to the conflict. That 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 asking for comment. Reuters was unable to reach military leaders in either country.
When asked about reports that Eritrean troops have committed rape in Tigray and are keeping women in sexual slavery, information minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, accused TPLF activists of “coaching” sympathizers “to give false testimony.”
“All made-up stories – 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 was unable to reach a TPLF spokesperson.
DATA OF ABUSE
Fasika, the health official, said at least 829 cases of sexual assault have been reported in the five hospitals since the conflict began in Tigray.
Those cases were likely “the tip of the iceberg,” said Fasika. Rape is underreported in Ethiopia because of enormous stigma. Also, most of the region’s health facilities are out of order, and travel between cities remains dangerous, he said.
Most of the women who have come forward are either pregnant or have suffered serious physical harm from the rapes, Fasika said.
Reuters interviewed 11 women who said they had been raped by soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia, or both. Four said they had been kidnapped, taken to military camps and gang raped, in some cases along with other women. The women did not know the camp names, but said they were near Mekelle and the towns of Idaga Hamus, Wukro and Sheraro.
Five other women said they were held in fields or abandoned houses for six days. And two said they had been raped in their own homes.
Reuters was unable to independently verify their accounts. However, they all told similar stories of being beaten and mistreated. Health care providers confirmed that the injuries of the 11 women were consistent with the events they described, and they showed Reuters medical records of three of the women describing their condition.
The caregivers also shared data on nine other sexual assault cases, 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 personnel say new rapes are reported every day in health facilities in the region.
“This is done to dishonor women, to break their pride,” said a doctor at Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, referring to the brutality of the attacks and humiliation of victims. “This is not for sexual gratification. The rapes are meant to punish Tigray.”
‘TELL MY STORY’
The 27-year-old mother said soldiers in uniform from Eritrea pulled her from a minibus on February 6 on the road from Mekelle to the city of Adigrat. They tied her up and took her through fields to a bush camp, she said. After eleven days of rapes and beatings, she said, the soldiers shoved nails, cotton, plastic bags and a stone into her vagina and left her alone in the bush.
Villagers found her unconscious and took her to a nearby hospital.
She said she was still bleeding from serious internal injuries and that she could not control her urine, walk without a crutch, or sit upright for long periods of time. One leg was broken, she said.
She also described a different kind of pain: in the hospital she cannot talk 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 find food and never returned. At the time, the family had bread for less than a week.
“I don’t know whether they’re dead or alive,” she said. “The enemy has destroyed my life.”
A 32-year-old mother in Mekelle told Reuters that soldiers pulled her out of a minivan on the same road in late February. They were dressed in Ethiopian uniforms, she said, but spoke with an Eritrean accent and had traditional facial cuts typical of the neighboring country. She said she shot her 12-year-old son in front of her eyes and then took her to a camp where she was held with other female prisoners and raped repeatedly for 10 days.
“Tell my story,” she said. ‘This is happening to women now. I want this to end with me. ‘
A 28-year-old cleaning lady said 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 10 men in Ethiopian or Eritrean uniforms.
She wiped away her tears, saying that during her two-week ordeal, soldiers doused and mocked her as they attacked her. She escaped when her captors were distracted by gunfire, she said.
SHOT FOR RESISTANCE
Separately from the Human Rights Commission, the government has set up a task force to investigate reports of sexual violence. The chief, Mebrihit Assefa, said there are representatives from the regional health bureau, the attorney general’s office and federal police in the body.
The task force plans to set up five centers where rape survivors can report to the police and receive medical and psychosocial support.
“Our prosecutors (and) police officers are there to investigate all crimes committed, including sexual assault,” said Awol Sultan, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
He did not respond to inquiries about the women who claimed they had been raped while in custody, or that prosecutors were in contact with the Eritrean or Ethiopian armies. The results of the criminal investigation will be made public at an indefinite date, he said.
Abera Nigus, the head of Tigray’s law office, said the legal process would likely be complicated because most courts do not function in Tigray and many rape victims are unable to identify their attackers.
Knowing their rapists are still at large has also discouraged women from seeking help, doctors said.
Many of the women treated in hospitals had vaginal and anal tears, sexually transmitted diseases, and injuries that made them incontinent, said the Ayder hospital doctor, an obstetrician gynecologist. The doctor shared notes of 11 cases treated by the hospital in which women had been raped by soldiers.
According to hospital notes, one woman had been raped on three separate occasions.
Another was five months pregnant when she was raped, the notes show. Two 14-year-old girls were sexually assaulted in front of their families. A girl’s hand and foot were amputated.
She had been shot for resisting her attacker.
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