“Reports indicate that atrocities have been committed in the Tigray region,” Abiy wrote in a post on his Twitter account. “Regardless of the TPLF’s propaganda of exaggeration, any soldier responsible for raping our women and looting communities in the region will be responsible because their mission is to protect,” he said, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the ruling party of the region, which now leads a resistance against Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in the area.
CNN revealed medical records and the testimony of survivors, alleging that the women were being raped, drugged and kidnapped by soldiers.
Senior officials from UN agencies issued a rare statement on Monday afternoon demanding that allegations of rape and other forms of sexual violence in the region be investigated.
“Amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Ethiopian Tigray region, reports of indiscriminate and targeted attacks on civilians, including rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence, continue to emerge. This must be stopped. “, says the statement.
“First, it is essential that an independent investigation into conflict-related sexual violence in Tigray be initiated, with the participation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.”
They called on all parties to the conflict “to fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law; to ensure that their forces respect and protect civilians, especially women and children, from all abuses of human rights.” “explicitly condemn all sexual violence; bring perpetrators to justice where abuse occurs.”
One victim became pregnant
A CNN team in Hamdayet, a Sudanese city on the border with Ethiopia where thousands of Tigray refugees have gathered in recent months, spoke to several women who described being raped as they fled the fighting.
“He pushed me and said,‘ Tigrayans have no history, no culture. I can do whatever I want to you and no one cares, “a woman told her attacker. She told CNN she is now pregnant.
In a separate case in Ethiopia, a woman’s vagina was filled with stones, nails and plastic, according to a video seen by CNN and the testimony of one of the doctors who treated her.
According to the doctors CNN spoke to, almost all the women they treat tell similar stories of rapes of Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. The women said the troops had a self-proclaimed retributive mission and were operating with almost total impunity in the region.
“Women who have been raped say that the things they are told when they were raped are that they need to change their identity, either to have breakfast or at least to leave their Tigrinya status … and they have done so. come clean them … clean the bloodline, “Dr. Tedros Tefera said.
“Practically this has been a genocide,” he added.
One of the survivors told Channel 4 News that she and five other women were raped by 30 Eritrean soldiers who joked and took pictures throughout the attack. He said he knew they were Eritrean troops because of their dialect and uniforms. She said she was able to return home only to be raped again. When she tried to escape, she remembered being captured, injected with a drug, tied to a rock, stripped, stabbed and raped by soldiers for 10 days.
On Monday, the Eritrean embassy in the United Kingdom and Ireland responded to repeated requests for comment from CNN denying allegations of wrongdoing by Eritrean soldiers and denying that Eritrean troops were in Ethiopia.
CNN’s Schams Elwazer, Richard Roth, Sarah Dean and Angela Dewan contributed to this report.