Ethiopian Tigray fighters killed and gang-raped civilians, says Amnesty report

Dozens of women and girls have become vicitims of abuse during the 15-month war

A woman queues for food at a relief centre, amid conflict in the Tigray region last year. A report has highlighted more atrocities in Ethiopia. Reuters

Tigrayan forces fighting Ethiopia’s government deliberately killed civilians and gang-raped dozens of women and girls in two towns in the Amhara region last year, Amnesty International has said.

The human rights watchdog interviewed 30 rape survivors, some as young as 14, and victims of violence to get a sense of the atrocities that have been carried out during the 15-month war in areas including Chenna and Kobo.

In a report published on Wednesday, Amnesty said it spoke to victims in August and September after rebels from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seized control of the towns.

About half the victims of sexual violence said they were gang-raped, with doctors telling Amnesty that some survivors had suffered deep wounds and cuts.

A schoolgirl, 14, told the rights group she and her mother were raped by TPLF fighters, who said the attacks were in revenge for abuses committed against their own families.

“One of them raped me in the courtyard and the other raped my mother inside the house,” she said.

“My mother is very sick now, she is very depressed and desperate. We don't speak about what happened. It is impossible.”

The investigation follows the publication of an Amnesty report in November, which documented sexual assaults by Tigrayan rebels in the Amhara town of Nifas Mewcha.

“Evidence is mounting of a pattern of Tigrayan forces committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in areas under their control in the Amhara region from July 2021 onwards,” said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty's deputy director for East Africa.

“This includes repeated incidents of widespread rape, summary killings and looting, including from hospitals."

Tigray war over the past year – in pictures

Residents of Kobo said TPLF fighters shot dead unarmed civilians, apparently in a revenge killing spree after facing resistance to their advance by Amhara militias.

“The first dead bodies we saw were by the school fence,” said one man. "There were 20 bodies lying in their underwear and facing the fence, and three more bodies in the school compound. Most were shot at the back of their heads and some in the back.

“Those who were shot at the back of their heads could not be recognised because their faces were partially blown off."

The watchdog said its satellite imagery analysis revealed the existence of the new burial sites referred to by the villagers.

The TPLF did not respond to the latest allegations, Amnesty said. But the rebel group has previously criticised the watchdog over its earlier report on alleged atrocities in Nifas Mewcha, saying it would conduct its own probe and bring perpetrators to justice.

Hundreds raped by soldiers

The war in northern Ethiopia has resulted in many accounts of massacres and mass rapes, with thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation.

Amnesty has previously documented the rape of hundreds of women and girls by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers in Tigray.

A joint investigation by UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet's office and the government-affiliated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission published last November found evidence of “serious abuses” by all sides, saying that some violations may amount to crimes against humanity.