UN deputy chief shaken by Ethiopian conflict’s impact on women

admin December 15, 2022

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said Friday that women had faced “unimaginable” horrors in conflict-torn regions of Ethiopia.

Mohammed became the highest-ranking UN official to visit Ethiopia since the government launched an offensive against the militants in the Tigray region in 2020.

The UN’s no. 2 was speaking to reporters in New York a day after returning from the East African nation.

During her five-day trip, she visited the Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Somali regions in Ethiopia. She met with Tigray’s leaders and Ethiopia’s prime minister and president. 

The former Nigerian minister also talked to local leaders, civil society members and many women.

Mohammed said she was left near tears after listening to the accounts of rape from Ethiopian women.

What did Mohammed say?

“Ethiopian women, writ large, were affected in a way that is unimaginable,” Mohammed said. “In your worst nightmares, you cannot imagine what has happened to the women in Ethiopia.”

She spoke to women who recalled their trauma, including being raped in front of their children.

Mohammed met a woman in Tigray who had been gang-raped over and over again. That woman had given birth to a son and was cast away from her family and society.

  • An internal displaced mother and daughter who fled violence in Ethiopia's Tigray region in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 22, 2021

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Hundreds of thousands on the run

    The civil war between the Tigray regional government and the central government of Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed continues to escalate. Hundreds of thousands are now on the run, living in hunger and threatened by war crimes. After the self-proclaimed Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) recaptured Tigray’s regional capital Mekele, many are fleeing from the contested areas to Mekele.

  • Mother holds her malnourished daughter in the treatment tent of a medical clinic in the town of Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, in May 2021

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Threat of famine

    According to the United Nations, more than 400,000 people in the region are affected by famine, while another 1.8 million people are on the brink of famine. Abiy is denying this, and has blocked deliveries of aid. UNICEF commented in August 2021: “This malnutrition crisis is taking place amid systematic destruction of the food, health, nutrition, water and sanitation infrastructure.”

  • Villagers return from a market to Yechila town in south central Tigray walking past scores of burned vehicles, in Tigray, Ethiopia, July 10, 2021

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Scorched earth

    The Ethiopian army is fighting side by side with soldiers from Eritrea — targeting not only the separatist fighters, but also the civilian population of Tigray. For Prime Minister Abiy, this is a means to break resistance in the Tigray region. Reports of war crimes and massacres are piling up. Burned-out cars and destroyed houses are part of the daily picture.

  • A woman who was says she was held captive and repeatedly raped by Eritrean soldiers in a remote village near the Eritrea border, speaks at a hospital in Mekele, Tigray

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Rape as a weapon

    A new report by Amnesty International (AI) confirms that rape and sexual violence against women are apparently being used to deliberately destabilize the situation. According to AI, soldiers from Eritrea are also heavily involved in these acts. “They talked to each other. Some of them: ‘We kill her.’ Some of them: ‘No, no. Rape is enough for her,'” recalled the woman pictured.

  • Stones are arranged on a grave where a piece of paper says a soldier from Ethiopia's military is buried in the outskirts of Yechila in Tigray, Ethiopia, July 10, 2021

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Massacres and makeshift graves

    The bodies of fighters from both sides are everywhere. Sometimes they are buried at makeshift sites; sometimes they are dumped in rivers, or simply left on the spot. This picture shows the makeshift grave of an Ethiopian soldier.

  • Soldiers of Tigray Defence Force (TDF) walk in a line in Mekele, Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 30, 2021

    Tigray: War at the expense of women

    Youth fighters

    Ever more young people are signing up for the resistance to oppose the combined forces of the central government and Eritrea. Many of the new TDF fighters are just teenagers. They face an unsure and possibly bloody future.

    Author: Sarah Klein, Claudia Dehn


“There is everyone to blame” for the atrocities, Mohammed said, adding that “it’s unacceptable that one human being would do that to another.”

“Without a shadow of a doubt, justice and accountability have to be had,” she said.

She said the warring parties “cannot achieve any lasting peace without reconciling and being held to account for the atrocities across the country.”

What’s the present situation in Ethiopia?

Ethiopia erupted into war in November 2020 after months of political tension between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan fighters.

The conflict has claimed thousands of lives and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine.

Rights groups have accused fighters on all sides of widespread sexual violence.

adi/dj (AFP, Reuters)



UN deputy chief shaken by Ethiopian conflict’s impact on women
Source: Pinoy Pop News
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