Amnesty reports widespread rapes 'with impunity' in Tigray

Aug 12, 20210

Ben Curtis, Associated Press file count

A 40-year-old woman who was says she was held captive and repeatedly raped by 15 Eritrean soldiers over a week spoke during a May interview at a hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Dozens of women have described shocking sexual assaults by Ethiopian soldiers and allied forces in the country's Tigray conflict, says an Amnesty International report published Wednesday, and its researcher calls it striking how the perpetrators appeared to act without fear of punishment from their commanders.

"All of these forces from the very beginning, everywhere, and for a long period of time felt it was perfectly OK with them to perpetrate these crimes because they clearly felt they could do so with impunity, nothing holding them back," Donatella Rovera told The Associated Press.

She would not speculate on whether any leader gave the signal to rape, which the report says was intended to humiliate both the women and their Tigrayan ethnic group. In her years of work investigating atrocities around the world, these are some of the worst, Rovera said.

https://www.startribune.com/amnesty-reports-widespread-rapes-with-impunity-in-tigray/600086799/