NAIROBI — Almost a year after the agreement was signed ending Ethiopia’s horrific civil conflict in the northern Tigray region, sexual violence against women by Eritrean and Ethiopian forces persists, according to a report published Thursday.
Researchers from Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa examined a sample of 304 medical records from a pool of thousands across Tigray health facilities, revealing “widespread and systematic conflict-related sexual violence” perpetrated against civilians after the peace agreement was reached.
“Of all the cases and charts that we looked at, 128 cases, which is almost half, were cases that happened after November 2022, when the parties signed the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, suggesting that it was an agreement that was not really coming into effect,” said Ranit Mishori, PHR’s senior medical adviser.
U.S. finds Ethiopian troops committed crimes against humanity
Fighting broke out between Ethiopia’s central government and forces from its Tigray region in November 2020 and ground on for two years in a seesaw conflict that killed an estimated half-million people — many through starvation — and displaced millions more. Sexual violence was rampant on both sides, but particularly among regional militias and troops from neighboring Eritrea, both allied with the central government.
The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was meant to have ended the fighting and abuses.
The report notes that survivors identified their attackers as largely belonging to Eritrean or Ethiopian armed forces, corroborating previous multiple reports of rapes and killings by pro-government troops.
In March, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said government troops and other forces in Ethiopia committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the two-year conflict, calling some of the actions “calculated and deliberate.”
Rapes committed by multiple attackers accounted for the majority of the cases documented in the report, which covered victims ranging in age from 8 to 69. The report also says that of the sexual violence cases against minors that were examined by the researchers, 95 percent occurred after the peace accord. Several accounts also described the killing of family members, including children, before, during or after rape, the report said.
“The 304 cases sampled is a small portion of what we believe is the real scope of the sexual violence as part of this conflict,” Mishori said
The report indicated that the children and adolescents surveyed told of long-term consequences including physical injuries and mental conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In some cases, there were unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of HIV.
“All this is happening at the same time when the Ethiopian government is very robustly arguing that there is no need for international assistance, international attention or international monitoring,” said Sam Zia-Zarifi, PHR’s executive director. “The Ethiopian government is spinning a false narrative, and at a time when the people and the country really seem to be desperately needing more attention while the government is trying to hide what’s happening.”
The Ethiopian government has not responded to The Washington Post for comment on the report.
The government has been pressing to end international monitoring of allegations of abuse in Ethiopia. It previously shut down an African Union commission looking into allegations of abuse in the Tigray region.
The fighting between the central government and the TPLF began as a power struggle growing out of Tigray’s dominance of the country’s politics and leadership for the past three decades, and included the forces of neighboring Eritrea. Eritrean troops in particular were accused of attacks against Tigrayan civilians and engaging in sexual violence.
In March, The Post reported that just days before the agreement to end the war, Eritrean forces killed more than 300 villagers in at least 10 villages in Tigray over the course of a week.
Even after the African Union agreement was signed, Eritrean troops reportedly remained in the Tigray region. Asked during a February visit to Nairobi about crimes attributed to his troops, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki dismissed them as fabrications.
“It is a fantasy of those who want to derail any peace process achieved this far,” he said. “As far as Ethiopia is concerned, this agreement is signed, it will take time to be implemented on the ground, and it’s up to the government of Ethiopia to decide on the mechanisms and processes of implementing this arrangement.”
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly said that minors were victims in 95 percent of cases of sexual violence in Tigray after the signing of the peace agreement, according to a new report. In fact, the report says that of the sexual violence cases against minors that were examined by the researchers, 95 percent came after the peace accord. The article has been corrected.
