The genocidal war in Tigray was marked by deliberate, horrific and wide range of sexual and gender-based violence. Sexual violence was used as a weapon of war, inflicted massively against women and girls by the armed perpetrators causing lasing pain and sufferings on the survivors. The sexual violence was frequently lifted by insertion of foreign objects in to genitalia. Insertion of foreign objects into the women’s reproductive organs not only prevents them from giving birth, but also causes serious physical and psychological injury.
This testimony is one of countless instances of sexual violence suffered by a 27-year-old woman who was gang-raped and subjected to insertion of foreign objects:
Hewan (pseudonym) used to live in the Eastern zone with her children. Before the incident, she went to her parent’s village to give birth. As Hewan recounts, the war broke out in November 2020 a week before she gave birth to twins. As a result, she could not flee to a safer place. In fact, Hewan was only scared of the heavy shelling and never thought of sexual violence. On 25 Nov.2020, she was at home with her father when seven EDF soldiers came and forced him out-of-doors and severely beat him. Then they turned to her and started joking around about her giving birth to twins and if she was Chinese. Then they ordered her to enter the house. Hewan recalls that at that moment, one of her babies was asleep, and she embraced the other one. Then one of the EDF soldiers snatched her baby off her, and the little baby fell down. Then one of them kicked Hewan in her ear with his boot, and she started bleeding. Then he beat her with a rifle butt on her ribs, and she fell down. They kept asking her where her husband was. After that, they asked if she had gold. Hewan gave them her gold jewelry. Then they ordered her to sleep on the bed and the seven of them started raping her one after the other. Hewan recalls that one of them resisted not rape her. Then one of the EDF soldiers angrily said, “Did you forget what they did to us? It is by procreating children like this that they dominate us,” pointing to her twins. Then they all repeatedly raped her vaginally and orally. Hewan said that they had at least raped her twice each. Then one of them injected her on her left leg with a substance she didn’t know. After that, one of them ordered “kill her.” But the other one said, “She is already dead; we don’t need to waste a bullet,” and they left. Hewan, who was gangraped a week after her delivery, couldn’t move, and her mother nursed her for six months.” Hewan added that after more than two years of persistent pain, she approached medical personnel in Adigrat, where she was referred to Ayder Hospital. Then she had to do an X-ray procedure. Then the doctors found out that foreign objects inside her womb. Hewan recalls, “During the medical procedure, nails, metal screws, nail clippers, and two letters wrapped in plastic were removed from her womb. Small stones were also removed from her womb. She adds that she saw and read the letters; the doctors also read for her. The letter said ‘From now on, Tigrayan women will never give birth to Tigrayan anymore. We will make them never give birth. We will take revenge for what they did to us years back.’ Hewan testifies that her mother also told her that she found condoms removed from her womb while nursing her.
Akberet(name changed) was a young lady who was a victim of GBSV.
Here is her painful story
When Ethiopian soldiers were patrolling Hagereselam, they s arrested her and brought her to a military camp in Mekele. For two months she was raped by all ranks of soldiers. She was raped, beaten, and they used sharp materials to disfigure her private parts. Finally she had bleeding, unbearable pain and was brought to Ayder Hospital for bleeding and severe abdominal pain. She was found to have first trimester abortion. She completed her abortion. The hospital was heavily Guarded by Abiy Ahmed’ republican guards.
However when we hear this atrocity committed in her the nurses in hospital collaborated and were able to take her out of Ayder hospital and put in a hiding place.
The next day, soldiers were searching every hospital unit, threatening to kill everyone.
A wound care nurse was assigned, a psychologist visited her.
But the pain she had was beyond imagination. On top this she was found to be HIV positive (we believe was acquired from the soldiers). She is in her early 20s.
I remember her courage though, she was ready to tell her story to media while hiding. Media outlets were trying to reach out to her, however media coverage was restricted. Simon from New York times, and Robbie from AFP contacted me to reach out and talk to her, yet they couldn’t meet her in person and tell her story to the world, I believe government pressure kept them away.