‘No end’ to conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, warns UNICEF

He said more than a million people were displaced, noting that fighting was continuing, and security remained a major issue. UNICEF had been “concerned from the onset about the harm that this is going to cause children, and unfortunately such fears are being realized.”

“What is really emerging now is a disturbing picture of severe and ongoing child violations, there is also unfortunately an education and nutrition emergency and I saw extensive destruction to systems on essential services that children rely on.”

US raising alarm over ‘deteriorating’ humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region

“Humanitarians absolutely need unhindered access to populations in need, and we are concerned about the fact that there are populations that we haven’t yet been able to reach,” said Emily Dakin, the senior U.S. Agency for International Development official leading the U.S. response in Tigray.

More 500 rape cases have been reported, the United Nations said in late March, although the number is likely higher. The top health official in Tigray’s interim government told Reuters last week, “Women are being kept in sexual slavery.”

EU demands Eritrea withdraw from Tigray

ADDIS ABABA: Sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray, the UN aid chief told the Security Council prompting the US envoy to challenge the body’s silence, asking: “Do African lives not matter as much as those experiencing conflict in other countries?”

Sexual violence being used as weapon of war in ethiopia’s tigray UN says

ADDIS ABABA: Sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray, the UN aid chief told the Security Council prompting the US envoy to challenge the body’s silence, asking: “Do African lives not matter as much as those experiencing conflict in other countries?”

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, c: The constant instability in the Horn of Africa

Over the past three decades, the Horn of Africa has acquired a bad reputation as a notoriously unstable subregion with a highly volatile socio-political framework.

This region can only be described as one at war with itself, owing to a number of issues from tribal and clan dynamics to historical injustices. Therefore, the solution for instability should be sourced from within – as only the insiders can truly understand and contextualise the full extent of their problems.

Video shows the horror of rape as weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

When she arrived at the hospital, she was incredibly weak. The gynecologist who carried out the operation successfully removed two nails, several pieces of tissue, a balled up plastic bag and a rock from her vaginal cavity. She was bleeding but, thankfully, there were no perforations [Editor’s note: holes in the wall of her vaginal cavity.] There will be no permanent damage. Her reproductive organs still work. So there is no serious permanent physical damage. But in terms of psychological trauma, that is something else. 

All of the personnel at the hospital were horrified by this case. I haven’t seen or heard of this practice in any other case of rape during this conflict. And I haven’t heard of this taking place anywhere else. We see rape cases but not this… how can you reach that degree of inhumanity?

In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, reports of sexual slavery and violent rape

Doctors showed Reuters the bloodstained stone and two 3-inch nails they said they had removed from her body.

The woman, 27, is among hundreds who have reported that they were subjected to horrific sexual violence by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers after fighting broke out in November in the mountainous northern region of Ethiopia, doctors said.

reuters: Eritrea admits presence in Ethiopia’s Tigray, tells U.N. withdrawing

“Neither the U.N. nor any of the humanitarian agencies we work with have seen proof of Eritrean withdrawal,” Lowcock told the Security Council on Thursday. “We have, however, heard some reports of Eritrean soldiers now wearing Ethiopian Defense Force uniforms.”

aljazeera: Eritrea confirms its troops are fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray

For months, both sides denied Eritreans were involved, contradicting testimony from residents, rights groups, aid workers, and diplomats.

The conflict arrived in the middle of the harvest in Tigray and for months humanitarian access was greatly restricted, prompting fears of widespread starvation.

Sexual violence being used as weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray, U.N. says

Lowcock said he had received a report earlier on Thursday that 150 people had died from hunger in Tigray and warned that “starvation as a weapon of war is a violation.”

“There is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war,” Lowcock said, adding the majority of rapes were committed by men in uniform, with accusations made against all the warring parties.