Many survivors of Ethiopia’s devastating Tigray war remain optimistic despite the scars left by the conflict.
Warning: This article includes graphic accounts of sexual abuse which some people may find disturbing. Please exercise caution before reading on.
Before the outbreak of war in Tigray, life was quite different for 42-year-old Kebedesh and her family in the northern part of Ethiopia. She ran a small hotel and was also involved in small-scale agriculture. Everything was going well for her.
Then, in November 2020, fighting between the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (FDRE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)broke out. The war — which lasted two years — later saw Eritrean forces and Amhara militia joining hands to support the Ethiopian government forces.
Rape as a weapon of war
A week after the outbreak of the conflict, as Kebedesh and her 8-year-old daughter were walking through Kafta, a rural area near the Eritrean border, five soldiers intercepted them, four from the neighboring country and one from the central government.
“They aggressively asked me, ‘Do you have a man at TPLF?’ — I said no,” Kebedesh recalled.
The five men gang-raped her. At the same time, they stabbed her daughter and poured boiling water on her stomach to silence her cries for help.
After the soldiers left, Kebedesh gathered all the strength left in her and took her seriously wounded child to an Ethiopian military base to receive medical assistance. Read more