The world must step in now and call the assaults what they are: a war crime.
In recent weeks, women in Tigray, Ethiopia, have started coming forward with the most painful stories imaginable about how they have been sexually violated and tortured by soldiers of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies.
Rape and sexual violence are being used to pursue political and military goals in Ethiopia’s crisis-hit Tigray region, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said Tuesday.
“That is also what we have seen in the last six months in northern Ethiopia. The rapes there have not stopped,”
IOM achieved major milestones in Ethiopia in 2019. To list just a few, over 130,000 returning migrants were aUNICEF has denounced that over one million people have been displaced in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Fighting is continuing after the Ethiopian government’s military offensive started on November 4, 2020.
“The personal statements I received from children who had been raped or testimonies of women who were victims of sexual violence were harrowing”,
The Joe Biden climate-fest; rape as a weapon of war in Tigray; Burma slides further downhill.
“Tigray Can’t Wait: The UN Security Council Must Act to End Sexual Assault Now”: Susana Malcorra, an Argentine who was a top UN official under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urges with other members of the Global Women Leaders group that the Council stop the sexual atrocities occurring in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia.
The United Nations Security Council has voiced “deep concern” over a humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region for the first time since conflict erupted there five months ago, calling for reported atrocities to be investigated.
“Look after my babies,” she said. “I’m going to d”We have, however, heard some reports of Eritrean soldiers now wearing Ethiopian Defence Force uniforms. And regardless of uniform or insignia, humanitarian staff continue to report new atrocities which they say are being committed by Eritrean Defence Forces.”
The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice. They welcomed the joint investigation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into alleged human rights violations and abuses. The members of the Security Council also welcomed the engagement on this issue of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.
“The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region, and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice,”
Eritrea told the Security Council on Friday that it has agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Tigray, acknowledging publicly for the first time its involvement in the conflict.
“Testimonies of some rape survivors reveal the brutal and heinous war being waged on the bodies of women and girls,” Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said during a discussion about Tigray at Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security on Wednesday.
The U.N. says the majority of rapes reported have been committed by men in uniform. Cases reported have involved Ethiopian National Defense Forces, Eritrean Defense Forces, Amhara Special Forces, and other irregular armed groups or aligned militia.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council expressed concern Thursday about humanitarian conditions and human rights in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, marking the council’s first collective comment on the conflict that has raged in the region for six months.
Lowcock, meanwhile, told the council last week that some 4.5 million of Tigray’s 6 million need humanitarian aid and that “there is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war.” He cited alarmingly numerous reports of rape and other sexual attacks, mainly by men wearing the uniforms of various forces.
As the conflict in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region enters its sixth month, the U.N. Security Council broke its silence Thursday to call for scaled-up humanitarian access and “a restoration of normalcy.
The Tigray interim administration estimates that at least 4.5 million of Tigray’s nearly 6 million people need humanitarian assistance. The United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to assist 16 million people in Tigray and across Ethiopia this year.
