What’s Happening in Ethiopia?

 by Poppy-Rose Banton

Ethiopia has become a hotbed of tension between the 80-plus ethnic groups that constitute the country. In November of last year, Ethiopia fell back into civil war. The government pitted against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front- a group who until recently controlled politics in Ethiopia. A communication black-out was imposed on Ethiopia by the government, this is not for the first time either. In 2019, following a coup attempt in the southern Amara region and in June of 2020 following the killing of a famous Ethiopian singer which led to clashes, the country fell into communication blackout. This has proved a challenge to the media for reporting on Ethiopia. 

Over the past week, evidence of sexual violence against women being used as a weapon of war in the northern region of Tigray Has surfaced. Since the launch of a government initiated military operation against the leaders in Tigray, according to testimonies of doctors in Ethiopia and from a Sudanese refugee camp there has been a horrific increase in the number of sexual assault and rape cases. These women were supposedly targeted by Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers due to their Tigray ethnicity. Many women who successfully managed to flee to safety and outside the country, testified to CNN reporters recounting stories of gang-rape, drugging and being held hostage, noting that the Amhara militia forces (united alongside the government) claimed that they were ‘intent on ethnically cleansing Tigray’.

There have also been extreme acts of violence against men. According to testimonies, the militia of the Amhara region, have been mass murdering those in villages, attacking them with axes, beating them with machine guns and being forced to the ground with weapons in their mouths and killing at random leaving many severely injured for dead. However some of these men managed to flee Ethiopia into bordering Sudan. Here CNN gathered these horrifying testimonies of inhumane acts of violence, that has been performed to both men and women from Ethiopia. 

The US president, Joe Biden, is sending a envoy to Ethiopian to discuss the grave global concerns over the human rights abuse allegations of Northern Tigray and an joint investigation between UN human-rights chief and the Ethiopian Human Rights commission is being carried out to try and discover the verity of these chilling testimonies.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/12/07/ethiopia-tigray-tensions-refugees-sudan-eritrea-horn-of-africa-elbagir-pkg-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn