Ethiopia: Rape as a weapon of war in Tigray

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Rape victims in a "safe house" in Mekelle

Photo: EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP

SPIEGEL

: Ms. Solomon, you have been working with various UN organizations, the regional government and women's associations in Tigray for two years to help women who have been victims of sexual violence.

The reports that have come from Tigray since the beginning of the war are shocking.

Is rape a weapon of war in Tigray?

Fanita Solomon

Enlarge picturePhoto: private

Fanita Solomon

coordinates aid for women from exile who are victims of sexual violence in Tigray.

The social worker works with various local and international organizations.

Solomon:

Yeah.

I call women who work with rape victims in Tigray at least twice a day.

I have received countless reports, which I also forward to Amnesty International.

The rapes go on and on.

You don't stop.

And we only hear about the falls in the cities.

Not from those in the country where women would have to walk for days to get to a hospital.

The women come from there - if at all - only if they are afraid of being pregnant or if they have been severely injured as a result of the rapes.

I hear about a dozen cases every day.

SPIEGEL

: The unreported numbers are probably much higher?

Solomon:

Much higher than that.

Also because of the stigma.

Very few report what happens to them.

Sometimes when women are raped in front of their families, in front of their fathers, it is the families who make them seek help.

SPIEGEL

: What kind of stories do you hear?

Solomon:

A girl told us about how she was raped in her own home.

When her brother tried to protect her, he was shot in front of her eyes and the soldiers continued to rape her while he was bleeding to death.

Another woman said that her father was handcuffed to a chair and watched as she was raped.

Her father then took her to a clinic.

Another woman said that soldiers brought dirty cloths and stones for her.

She had to be operated on.

Many stories are similar.

The words that the perpetrators say are often the same.

We hear again and again that women are injected with something that makes them dizzy.

SPIEGEL

: What do the soldiers say to the women they rape?

Solomon:

That you are now purifying your bloodline.

SPIEGEL

: Who are the perpetrators?

Solomon:

It depends on which region in Tigray you are looking at.

Depending on who is in control there, there are Eritrean soldiers, soldiers from the Ethiopian army or militiamen from the neighboring region of Amhara.

SPIEGEL

: Are the patterns that you recognize different?

Solomon:

Yeah.

In reports that reach me about women who are brought to the soldiers' camps and raped there for days and weeks, the perpetrators are mostly Eritrean soldiers.

The perpetrators are also mostly Eritrean soldiers when it comes to administering narcotics or rape, in which family members have to watch or children are murdered.

SPIEGEL

: Are kidnappings also a big problem?

Solomon:

I recently heard of around 30 women who were kidnapped and held by soldiers for a few days.

They were drugged and raped.

One woman told us that her twelve-year-old son was shot in front of her eyes.

In the head.

Here, too, the stories are similar.

One worse than the other.

"Around 30 women were kidnapped, drugged and raped"

SPIEGEL

: Also that of the mass rapes?

Solomon:

Mass rape happens regularly.

The women are kidnapped from their homes, from the streets, wherever they are found, and taken to camps where 15, 20 or 30 soldiers are waiting.

There they are raped for days.

Some of them die.

Because it's just too much: 20 men all day.

Every day.

SPIEGEL

: Are the rapes carried out on orders from above?

Solomon:

That can't be said definitely.

But if you look at how the rapes happen and how regularly, you can clearly see a systematic approach.

SPIEGEL

: Is something being done about it?

Solomon:

No, nothing is being done about it.

As an example, let me tell you the story of one woman: She came to a clinic and wanted to have an abortion.

She told the doctors that she had to go back to her rapists.

"Why?" Asked the doctors.

She said that she was only allowed to go on condition that she be back that evening.

If she isn't back, her family will be killed.

There is no one to stop it.

Nobody to whom women can go and say, "This was done to me, protect me." They have to go back to the men who rape them.

There is lawlessness.

And rapes are increasing.

Each of us in Tigray has someone in our family who has been raped, whose home has been ransacked, or who has been shot.