Six months after the conflict began, governments need to be doing more to help those affected by the fighting
In any given humanitarian crisis, anywhere in the world, it is always the most marginalised, the most vulnerable groups that suffer the most. It is no surprise then that women and children are so often the bearers of the brunt of war.
Sexual violence is being used as a “weapon of war and humiliation” in Tigray, Ethiopia, according to a USAID-funded report. Many are saying this violence against women and children is rooted in ethnic cleansing. NBC News Foreign Correspondent Matt Bradley reports on the ongoing conflict. Warning: This report contains graphic accounts of sexual assault and may be disturbing.
“I begged them to stop,” Akberet told Al Jazeera. “I asked them, crying, why they were doing that to me. What wrong have I done to you?
“You did nothing bad to us,” she said they told her. “Our problem is with your womb. Your womb gives birth to Woyane [derogative term used to refer to the TPLF]. A Tigrayan womb should never give birth.”
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?
The 27-year-old mother said uniformed soldiers from Eritrea pulled her off a minibus on the road from Mekelle to the city of Adigrat on Feb. 6. They tied her up and marched her through fields to a bush camp, she said. After 11 days of rapes and beatings, she said, the soldiers forced nails, cotton, plastic bags and a rock into her vagina and left her alone in the bush.
Fasika, the health official, said at least 829 cases of sexual assault have been reported at the five hospitals since the conflict in Tigray began. Those cases were likely “the tip of the iceberg,” Fasika said
Eleven women tell Reuters they had been raped by soldiers as a top Ethiopian official has made a sexual slavery accusation.
“Women are being kept in sexual slavery,” Fasika told Reuters. “The perpetrators have to be investigated.”
In particular, right now the Security Council needs to pay attention to deeply disturbing reports of mass sexual violence occurring in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. We as a Council must address reports of women being forced by military elements to have sex for basic commodities, and reports of sexual violence against women and girls in refugee camps, among other horrific information. The international community must work to ensure that all those involved respect their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law. And the international community must establish immediate protection mechanisms, humanitarian aid, and other needed services for survivors. Independent, credible investigations must be conducted to hold perpetrators of these, and other human rights abuses and violations committed in Tigray, accountable.
