The United Nations reported more than 500 rape cases to five clinics in Ethiopia’s Tigray region on Thursday, warning that the actual figure was likely to be much higher due to stigma and a shortage of health facilities.
“Women claim to have been raped by armed actors; they have shared tales of gang rape, rape in front of family members, and men being coerced to rape their family members under threat of violence,” Wafaa Said, deputy UN aid coordinator in Ethiopia, said in a briefing to UN member states in New York.
She noted that five medical facilities in Mekelle, Adigrat, Wukro, Shire, and Axum had reported at least 516 rape cases.
“Given the fact that most health services are closed and the stigma associated with abuse, it is expected that the real figures are even higher,” she said.
‘Horrific sexual violence’
On Monday, a dozen top UN officials called for an end to indiscriminate and targeted assaults against civilians in Tigray, citing allegations of rape and “other heinous forms of sexual violence.”
In Tigray, violence erupted in November between government forces and the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also said that troops from neighboring Eritrea were present in the region.
Redwan Hussein, spokesperson for the government’s emergency task force on Tigray, Billene Seyoum, prime minister’s spokeswoman, Mulu Nega, president of Tigray’s provisional administration, Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed, and Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment on Thursday’s UN remarks.
Thousands of civilians have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have been forced to leave their homes in Tigray, a mountainous city of around five million people.
“Most of the internally displaced people left with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. They are generally traumatized and tell stories of the difficult journey they took in search of safety. Some reported walking for two weeks and some as far as 500km,” Said said.
“Of the people who traveled with them, some were reportedly killed – particularly youngsters; people were reportedly beaten, women were subject to rape, some were pregnant and delivered on the way losing their babies,” she said.
This week, Abiy admitted for the first time that massacres such as rape had occurred and promised that all soldiers who committed offenses would be disciplined.
Hundreds of witnesses in Tigray have testified that Eritrean soldiers repeatedly killed civilians, gang-raped and tortured women, and robbed homes and crops. Eritrea has not responded to inquiries about alleged massacres.
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