On November 4, 2020, a war broke out in Tigray, the northern federal region of Ethiopia. Since then, Tigrayan civilians have been at the receiving end of deliberate and harrowing crimes being perpetrated by armed forces. More than 150,000 civilians, mainly Tigrayans (but also Oromo, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, etc.), are believed to have been killed in Ethiopia since PM Abiy Ahmed came to power[1]. Crimes that ‘may amount’ to war crimes and crimes against humanity are perpetrated in Tigray[2], [3]. In Western Tigray, massive ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans is being committed by the Amhara militia to which the USA department of state has expressed its deep concern[4], [5], [6]. In other parts of Ethiopia, tens of thousands of Tigrayans (especially elites) are being ethnically profiled, abducted, and put into concentration camps[7], [8]. Additionally, religious leaders specially His Holiness Abune Mathias – Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church – are being put into informal house arrests and being strictly censored from speaking against the atrocities in Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia[9]. Overall, conciliatory messages remain exceptionally rare in the current Ethiopian state discourse, as hate speech and extremism against Tigrayans and other ethnic groups has, worryingly, become normalized and institutionalized.
So far, more than 200 massacres[10], intentional shelling of cities, towns[11] and villages[12] of Tigray are reported. Mass rape and mass starvation, by deliberately blocking humanitarian aid, are used as weapons of war[13]. Systematic and widespread looting and destruction of private and public properties including hospitals, and schools[14], [15], intentional burning of harvest and crop fields[16], systematic massacres[17], [18], deliberate cultural cleansing[19], and premeditated destruction of food and water systems in all parts of Tigray are being committed to starve and subjugate the people of Tigray[20]. According to a document dated 23.04.2021 from the interim government in Tigray (appointed by PM Abiy Ahmed) seen by AFP, Eritrean soldiers are blocking and looting food aid[21]. This has made Tigray face large-scale man-mad famine and on 20.05.2021 Ambassador Samantha Power, head of USAID, warned that early famine detection has reached Category 5 (also called Catastrophe – the last phase of famine warning), which means Tigray has now entered full scale man-made famine and per standard calculations of this Category, thousands of the 5.2 million starving people are already dying on daily basis[22]. United Nations (UN) has previously received reports that “main supply routes remain cut, cash is scarce and some people are reportedly eating leaves to survive”[1]. Similarly, OFXAM recently released a stern warning that over five million people have faced extreme levels of hunger[2], while UN says 33% – 42% of children/women screened were acutely malnourished[3]. Additionally, Bloomberg reported on 07.05.2021 quoting Karline Kleijer, head of emergency programs for Médecins Sans Frontières, saying as “what we’re seeing is concerning levels of malnutrition outside of the big towns. There are children dying of malnutrition.”[4] Reinforcing this report, CNN’s latest coverage of the very grim humanitarian situation in Tigray reveals that Eritrean soldiers are strictly blocking a much-needed life-saving food and medical aid[5].
On his April 15, 2021 briefing to the UN Security Council (SC), UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock spoke about reports of people dying of hunger, and widespread usage of sexual violence against women and girls as a weapon of war “with multiple men assaulting the victim” repeatedly over a period of days, and targeting girls as young as 8 years[6]. In another UN SC meeting, he said “they(rapes) are deliberately and systematically organized, targeted, ethnically based, andthey are intended to terrorize, humiliate and brutalize“[7]. Moreover, lack of access to medication remains critical to rape survivors, as 87% of health facilities in Tigray are intentionally made non-functional, and 70% are looted by Eritrean soldiers[8], which elongates the suffering of the survivors leading to a higher risk of health complications and eventual death. The systematic destruction of the healthcare system also leaves more than 180,000 chronic non-communicable diseases patients in Tigray without access to life-saving medications[9]. Additionally, USA ambassador to UN, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield informed UN SC that, in Tigray, farm is being intentionally destroyed and water pipes are being intentionally contaminated[10]which severely imperils the lives of the entire population in the region, but more so to women and girls whose free movement to seek clean water sources (if there are any) is inhibited due to widespread sexual violence.
UN Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that there are about 52,500 Tigrayan sexual violence survivors[11], while Save the Children indicates that, so far, almost 5000 children are separated from their parents due to the war[12]. However, the number of sexual and gender based violence victims is highly likely to be far greater due to the fact that the victims are not coming forward as they are either threatened by the perpetrators to not speak, or lack access to medical service or law enforcement. The UN says it maybe many months before the full scale and magnitude of atrocities being committed against women and girls in Tigray is known[13]. Likewise, it will be many months before the extent of family separation due to the war and the communication and total internet blackout is fully understood.
Rape is being used as weapon of war on thousands of innocent women and girls[14], [15] with the intent of inflicting unimaginable physical and mental trauma to survivors in particular and humiliation and subjugation of the Tigrayan ethnic group in general. Additionally, health officials allege that the ongoing war has resulted in rampant sexual slavery in Tigray[16], to which International Recue Committee’s (IRC) report corroborates that women are being forced to engage in sexually exploitative relationships in exchange for meals to feed their children[17]. Moreover, the perpetrators consistently, repeatedly and arrogantly tell the victims that they are raping them to commit ethnic cleansing, purify their blood, change the demography, depopulate Tigray, and carry on genocide on the Tigrayan ethnic group. In other cases, soldiers tell the victims that they are deliberately infecting the victims with HIV virus[18]. This is being committed in a systematic and organized manner where HIV positive members of the soldiers are engaged in deliberately spreading the virus to women and girls in Tigray.
While addressing the horrendous sexual violence happening in Tigray, Robert Mardini, who closely followed the civil wars in Syria and Yemen as the head of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s Near and Middle East, said that he had never heard such terrible accounts of sexual violence for more than two decades in the humanitarian sector[19]. Additionally, Nima Elbagir of CNN talked about a Tigrayan rape survivor as “when she was raped repeatedly by Ethiopian soldiers, she was told that her blood was being purified, she was being Amharanized. This is about erasing Tigray, the Tigrayan identity and the Tigrayan bloodline which is one of the hallmarks of genocide”[20]. Similarly, a doctor who treated many sexual violence survivors describes the situation as “practically, this has been a genocide”[21]. Furthermore, Pramila Patten of the UN said that “there are also disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence”[22]. In this regard, emerging agonizing sexual violence stories such as that of Merhawit[23], Tirhas[24], Mona Lisa[25] and others shed light onto the stories of thousands of women and girls who are facing disturbing inhumane sexual violence acts at gun points of Ethiopian and Eritrean armies, Amhara militia and Fano (Amhara vigilante group). Furthermore, Channel 4 News reported about the intentional and harrowing weaponized rape that innocent girls are enduring[42], to which National Public Radio (NPR) and Insecurity Insight add that monks as old as 65 years[26] and unknown number of catholic nuns[27] have been raped by Eritrean army members. In Adigrat, another woman was raped along with her 89-year-old grandmother. She said “they raped my grandmother after they beat her and dragged her by her feet.”[28]
In Western Tigray, Humara town, one person witnessed that Eritrean soldiers “pull aside 20 women from a group of Tigrayans and rape them. The next day, 13 of the women were returned”. There, a Tigrayan woman was given a stark choice by the Amhara militia “claim to be Amhara and we’ll give you back your house and find you a husband. But if you claim to be Tigrayan, we will come and rape you again.” In the same city, a mother and daughter were forced to watch each other while being raped; and another woman was raped on the road with people watching[29].
To give deeper insights into the magnitude of the weaponization of rape, some stories are listed below. Due to communication blackout and media restrictions, we are yet to hear the worst from remote and currently inaccessible areas of Tigray (more than 80% of Tigray), however, the following stories point to the tip of the iceberg.
- A Tigrayan woman was dragged off a bus and taken by Eritrean soldiers. Twenty three of these soldiers raped her for eleven days in their camp. They then put two nails, several pieces of tissue, a balled up plastic bag and a rock into her private part. They then threw her away[30].
- Another Tigrayan woman was forced to flee on foot from Western Tigray with her 6-month-old baby strapped to her back, and her two older sons – aged 4 and 7, and a 14-year-old brother-in-law. On their way, unfortunately, she was caught by Amhara forces in which four of them took turns raping her. At the end, the militiamen inserted a hot metal rod into her genitals that burned her uterus. When she begged them to leave her alone, they told her “a Tigrayan womb should never give birth.” Doctors later confirmed that she is made infertile forever. The Amhara forces have indeed stopped her womb from giving birth to additional Tigrayan children[31].
- In Wukro, Eastern Tigray, Ethiopian soldiers shot a woman’s brother in the head and killed him, following which five of the Ethiopian soldiers took turns raping her. “They raped me beside the corpse of my brother”40 the survivor recalled, who is now pregnant from the attack, like many other survivors.
- Another survivor recalled “they (Eritrean soldiers) took us (17 girls) into the forest. When we arrived there, there were around 100 soldiers who were waiting for us. They tied the hands and feet of each one of us. And then they raped us without mercy”. “We stayed that way for three days. After three days the soldiers killed five girls who had been tied with us. They poured [alcohol] over our wounds, and danced standing over us”40
- ‘Choose – I kill you or rape you’ was the option given to another Tigrayan woman by an Ethiopian soldier[32]. “The soldier … forced a gun on her and raped her” said the doctor who treated her.
- An 18 year old girl lost her right hand while defending herself when an Ethiopian soldier tried to rape her. The soldier also “tried to force her grandfather to have sex with her”[33]. Sobbing at her bed in a hospital, she lost hope of realizing her long held childhood dreams: “how will it be possible? I can’t be what I thought I would be” she said.
- Another woman was caught by the Eritrean soldiers as she went out of her home in search of food for her starving children. “They then hit her with their guns, insulted her, tied her up and dragged her to a military base. For about a month, both her feet and her leg were chained. And she was gang raped by the soldiers. They assaulted her so bad, she says, she wouldn’t stop bleeding. And eventually, the soldiers drove her out to a field and left her for dead. When she finally made it to the hospital, doctors pulled out five socks from inside of her. She couldn’t walk, eat or drink. But what hurts the most is that she has no idea where her children are. They’re lost in the chaos of war – maybe dead, maybe alive”[34].
These are atrocities with levels of cruelty beyond human kind’s comprehension. However, we worry that more could be happening in the remote areas that are kept in total communication blackout and inaccessible to media and international aid still occupied by Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers as well as Amhara militia. The lives of millions of defenseless innocent women and girls are at the mercy of these heartless soldiers who commit atrocities with levels of barbarism unheard of in recent human history.
As shown below, Insecruity Insight49 in collaboration with USAID analyzed a sample of 36 reported incidents involving 106 victims and 144 perpetrators (Ethiopian army, Eritrean army and Amhara militias).
All in all, the weaponized rape and sexual violence on Tigrayan women and girls have long term ramifications on the psychological and physical wellbeing of the survivors, as they are subjected to physical harm, mental trauma and distress. Moreover, any miscarriage of justice and a failure to bring the perpetrators to court of justice will not only deny closure to the sexual violence victims, but also leave them with lifetime scars.
[1] Ethiopia, where the past is threatening the present https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2021/04/13/ethiopia-where-the-past-is-threatening-the-present/
[2] UN: Ethiopian, Eritrean troops behind possible ‘war crimes’ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/4/un-ethiopian-eritrean-troops-behind-possible-war-crimes
[3] The massacre in Axum https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AFR2537302021ENGLISH.PDF
[4] Top US diplomat decries ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/10/us-top-diplomat-decries-ethnic-cleansing-in-ethiopias-tigray
[5] Ethiopia’s War Leads to Ethnic Cleansing in Tigray Region, U.S. Report Says https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/world/middleeast/ethiopia-tigray-ethnic-cleansing.html
[6] Blinken: Acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ committed in Western Tigray https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/10/politics/blinken-tigray-ethnic-cleansing/index.html
[7] ‘Clean out our insides’: Ethiopia detains Tigrayans amid war https://apnews.com/article/africa-ethiopia-race-and-ethnicity-health-coronavirus-5f22a5aea128cbd659fbf4f810aac973
[8] Ethiopia’s crackdown on ethnic Tigrayans snares thousands https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ethiopia-conflict-tigrayans/
[9] Ethiopian Orthodox Church Patriarch condemns Tigray ‘genocide’ https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/08/africa/orthodox-church-tigray-ethiopia-intl/index.html
[10] Tigray: Atlas of the humanitarian situation https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349824181_Tigray_Atlas_of_the_humanitarian_situation
[11] Ethiopia: Unlawful Shelling of Tigray Urban Areas: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/11/ethiopia-unlawful-shelling-tigray-urban-areas
[12] Ethiopia ‘will be digging up mass graves for a decade’: inside Tigray’s dirty war https://www.ft.com/content/23021d09-5dac-4ff5-b2a9-6b040ffdc6db
[13] Ethiopia: Hunger ‘used as a weapon of war’ in Tigray conflict https://www.channel4.com/news/ethiopia-hunger-used-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-tigray-conflict
[14] Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: Hospitals ‘vandalised and looted’ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56399882
[15] People left with few healthcare options in Tigray as facilities looted, destroyed https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/people-left-few-healthcare-options-tigray-facilities-looted-destroyed
[16] ‘Slaughtered like chickens’: Eritrea heavily involved in Tigray conflict, say eyewitnesses https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/21/slaughtered-like-chickens-eritrea-heavily-involved-in-tigray-conflict-say-eyewitnesses
[17] Ethiopia: Eritrean Forces Massacre Tigray Civilians https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/05/ethiopia-eritrean-forces-massacre-tigray-civilians
[18] ‘You should have finished off the survivors’: Ethiopian army implicated in brutal war crime video https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/19/should-have-finished-survivors-ethiopian-army-implicated-brutal/
[19] ‘No more sacred places’: Heritage sites under siege in Tigray conflict https://news.yahoo.com/no-more-sacred-places-heritage-054549797.html
[20] Starving Tigray: How Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocities Have Destroyed an Ethiopian Region’s Economy and Food System and Are Threatening Famine https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/starving-tigray-how-armed-conflict-and-mass-atrocities-have-destroyed-ethiopian
[21] Eritrean troops block, loot food aid in Tigray: documents https://news.yahoo.com/eritrean-troops-block-loot-food-122141403.html
[22] WARNING: Conflict causing extreme hunger in #Tigray; 5M+ people need humanitarian aid. Our early warning system now detects category 5 food emergency. https://twitter.com/PowerUSAID/status/1395155148683546624
[23] UN: Ethiopia May Not Have Control of a Large Part of Tigray https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-02-04/un-ethiopia-may-not-have-control-of-a-large-part-of-tigray
[24] Over 5 million people face extreme hunger as the Tigray conflict surges past six months – OXFAM https://www.oxfam.org.nz/news-media/media-releases/tigray-extreme-hunger/
[25] UN OCHA Ethiopia Tigray region humanitarian update 30 April 2021 https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Situation%20Report%20-%20Ethiopia%20-%20Tigray%20Region%20Humanitarian%20Update%20-%2027%20Apr%202021.pdf
[26] Hunger Stalks Ethiopia’s Tigray Region After Six Months of War https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/hunger-stalks-ethiopia-s-tigray-region-after-six-months-of-war
[27] Eritrean troops disguised as Ethiopian military are blocking critical aid in Tigray https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/12/africa/tigray-axum-aid-blockade-cmd-intl/index.html
[28] UN: Tigray’s humanitarian crisis worsens, no Eritrean exit https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/un-tigrays-humanitarian-crisis-worsens-no-eritrean-exit/2021/04/15/17fc89f0-9e18-11eb-b2f5-7d2f0182750d_story.html
[29] UN: Rape used for political, military goals in Tigray https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/un-rape-used-for-political-military-goals-in-tigray/2222518
[30] People left with few healthcare options in Tigray as facilities looted, destroyed https://www.msf.org/health-facilities-targeted-tigray-region-ethiopia
[31] The health crisis in Ethiopia’s war-ravaged Tigray https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2021/02/24/the-health-crisis-in-ethiopias-war-ravaged-tigray/
[32] Remarks by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at a UN Security Council Open Debate on Protection of Objects Indispensable to the Survival of Civilians https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-at-a-un-security-council-open-debate-on-protection-of-objects-indispensable-to-the-survival-of-civilians/
[33] Ethiopia, where the past is threatening the present https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2021/04/13/ethiopia-where-the-past-is-threatening-the-present/
[34] Six months on: Almost 5,000 children separated from parents by conflict in Tigray https://www.savethechildren.net/news/six-months-almost-5000-children-separated-parents-conflict-tigray
[35] It May be ‘Many Months’ Before Full Scale of Tigray Rapes Known, UN Official Says https://www.voanews.com/africa/it-may-be-many-months-full-scale-tigray-rapes-known-un-official-says
[36] In Tigray, Sexual Violence Has Become a Weapon of War https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/27/in-tigray-sexual-violence-has-become-a-weapon-of-war/
[37] Ethiopia’s conflict in Tigray: Women describe how rape is used as a weapon https://news.sky.com/story/ethiopias-conflict-in-tigray-women-describe-how-rape-is-used-as-a-weapon-12257465
[38] Health official alleges ‘sexual slavery’ in Tigray https://www.reuters.com/world/special-report-health-official-alleges-sexual-slavery-tigray-women-blame-2021-04-15/
[39] Tigray six months on; women still bear the brunt of conflict, warns IRC https://www.rescue.org/press-release/tigray-six-months-women-still-bear-brunt-conflict-warns-irc
[40] ‘We’re here to make you HIV positive’: Hundreds of women rush to Tigray hospitals as soldiers use rape as weapon of war https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/make-hiv-positive-hundreds-women-rush-tigray-hospitals-soldiers/
[41] Red Cross condemns ‘horrific’ sexual violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/red-cross-condemns-horrific-sexual-violence-in-ethiopias-tigray-20210422
[42] The Horrors of the Hidden War: Inside the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0OxwpFlaA0
[43] ‘Practically this has been a genocide’ Doctors say rape is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia’s conflict https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/19/africa/ethiopia-tigray-rape-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html
[44] ‘Disturbing’ rape allegations in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict: UN https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/22/disturbing-rape-allegations-in-ethiopias-tigray-conflict-un
[45] A rape survivor’s story emerges from a remote African war https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-02-11/troops-accused-of-mass-rape-in-ethiopias-tigray-conflict
[46] Anger and collective trauma scar Ethiopia’s Tigray region https://www.dw.com/en/anger-and-collective-trauma-scar-ethiopias-tigray-region/a-56794452
[47] Trauma, anger as Tigrayans recount Eritrea troops’ ‘grave crimes’ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/1/we-are-dying-tigrayans-speak-of-abuse-by-eritrean-troops
[48] Updates on the Conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region https://www.npr.org/2021/04/20/988997494/updates-on-the-conflict-in-ethiopias-tigray-region?t=1619221188158
[49] Sexual violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Sexual-Violence-in-Ethiopia-Tigray-Region-30-March-2021.pdf
[50] Ethiopia’s conflict in Tigray: Women describe how rape is used as a weapon https://news.sky.com/story/ethiopias-conflict-in-tigray-women-describe-how-rape-is-used-as-a-weapon-12257465
[51] ‘Leave no Tigrayan’: In Ethiopia, an ethnicity is erased https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-tigray-minority-ethnic-cleansing-sudan-world-news-842741eebf9bf0984946619c0fc15023
[52] Video shows the horror of rape as weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region https://observers.france24.com/en/africa/20210419-video-shows-the-horror-of-rape-as-weapon-of-war-in-ethiopia-s-tigray-region
[53] A Tigrayan womb should never give birth’: Rape in Tigray https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/21/a-tigrayan-womb-should-never-give-birth-rape-in-ethiopia-tigray
[54] ‘Choose – I Kill You or Rape You’: Abuse Accusations Surge in Ethiopia’s War
[55] Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: ‘I lost my hand when a soldier tried to rape me’ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55832711
[56] Behind The Humanitarian Crisis Caused By The Civil War In Ethiopia https://www.wwno.org/npr-news/2021-05-11/humanitarian-crisis-out-of-the-civil-war-in-ethiopia