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Women are gang-raped, drugged and held hostage, according to medical records and survivor testimonies shared with CNN. In one case, a woman’s vagina was stuffed with stones, fingernails and plastic, according to a video seen by CNN and testimony from one of the doctors who treated her.
Almost all of the women they treat tell similar stories of rape by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, according to doctors. The women said the troops were on a self-proclaimed retaliatory mission and operated with near total impunity in the area.
A CNN team in Hamdayet, a sleepy Sudanese town on the Ethiopian border 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, ‘You Tigrayans have no history, you have no culture. I can do whatever I want for you and nobody cares, “” one woman said of her attacker. She told CNN she was now pregnant.
Many say they were raped by Amhara forces who told them they intended to ethnically cleanse Tigray, a doctor working in the sprawling Hamdayet refugee camp told CNN.
“Women who have been raped say what they tell them when they rape them is that they have to change their identity – either Amhair them, or at least leave their Tigrinya status … and that they came there to clean them … to clean the blood line, ”said Dr Tedros Tefera.
“Practically, it was genocide,” he added.
The flood of refugees has become a trickle since Ethiopian forces reinforced the border in recent days, worrying refugees who still hope to be reunited with family members.
The Ethiopian and Eritrean governments did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on allegations that their forces are waging a coordinated campaign of sexual violence against women in Tigray.
New reports of sexual violence come as US President Joe Biden sends Senator Chris Coons to meet with Abiy and share “US concerns about the humanitarian crisis and human rights abuses in the Tigray region “. The State Department has previously called for an independent investigation into the atrocities committed during the war.
The Ethiopian government severely restricted access to journalists until recently, making it difficult to verify the accounts of survivors. And an intermittent communication failure during the fighting effectively blocked the war from the eyes of the world. But in recent weeks, as foreign journalists have been allowed in, gruesome stories of rape and sexual violence have started to surface.
One of the survivors told Channel 4 News that she and five other women were gang-raped by 30 Eritrean soldiers who joked and took pictures throughout the attack. She said she knew they were Eritrean troops because of their dialect and uniforms. She said she was only able to return home to be raped again. When she tried to escape, she recalled being captured, injected with drugs, tied to a rock, stripped, stabbed and raped by soldiers for 10 days.
Outside the shelter, many more women and girls are being treated at Ayder Referral Hospital, the main medical facility in the regional capital, Mekelle. Most were referred to them by hospitals in rural areas that are not equipped to deal with rape cases, Channel 4 News reported.
A doctor at the hospital told CNN that more than 200 women have been admitted for sexual violence in recent months, but many more cases have been reported in rural villages and internally displaced persons centers. of the country, with limited or no access to medical care.
Between the lack of access to medical services and the stigma surrounding sexual violence, doctors interviewed by CNN said they suspected the actual number of rape cases was much higher than official reports.
A coordinator at a gender-based violence crisis center in Tigray told CNN they used to hear cases every few days or once a week. Since the conflict broke out, up to 22 women and girls seek treatment for rape every day, she said.
Demand for emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections has also increased in recent months. Many women who have been raped have contracted sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, doctors told CNN.
A doctor said many of the women she treated had also suffered physical abuse, with broken bones and bruised body parts. She said the youngest girl she was caring for was 8, while the oldest was 60.
The doctor said many women who come forward share stories of others who haven’t – mothers, sisters, friends and other acquaintances.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office told CNN that they would conduct a joint investigation with the EHRC into allegations of serious human rights violations in Tigray.
CNN’s Nima Elbagir and Barbara Arvanitidis reported from Hamdayet. Eliza Mackintosh has written and reported from London. Bethlehem Feleke reported from Nairobi. Gianluca Mezzofiore and Katie Polglase reported from London.
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