Survivors of sexual violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are being prevented from accessing health care services, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report.
The report, titled, I Always Remember that Day: Access to Service for Gender-Based Violence Survivors in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region’, said Ethiopian federal authorities were severely restricting the entry of food, fuel, cash, and medical supplies.
The organisation said its researchers interviewed 28 health and aid workers, donors, and sexual violence survivors and witnesses.
It also said that 43 individual cases of sexual violence in Tigray were reviewed, documented through anonymised medical and intake notes from service providers.
HRW also said its researchers conducted telephone and written interviews with Tigray regional authorities.
The report said survivors of abuse are not getting treatment within the critical 72-hour window to prevent pregnancy and HIV due to the Ethiopian government’s obstruction of humanitarian assistance in Tigray.
Since the conflict began in November 2020, numerous grave abuses have been allegedly committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean armed forces, and regional Amhara militias allied to the Ethiopian army.
Development Diaries understands that these abuses range from massacres, rape, and other sexual violence against women and girls.
In February, the United Nations said that the Ethiopian government had prevented humanitarian aid from reaching areas in the Tigray region where most of the province’s 2.3 million people were in dire need of assistance.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as of April 2021, reported that only one percent of health facilities in Tigray could provide comprehensive gender-based violence services.
However, the Ethiopian government denied it prevented humanitarian aid from reaching the region, adding that it was doing all it could to rebuild its infrastructures.
‘One year since Tigray’s devastating conflict began, survivors of sexual violence – from gang rape to sexual slavery – remain in desperate need of health care and support services’, the report said.
‘Not only have Tigrayan women and girls experienced horrific abuses, they are confronting shortages of food, medicine, and other desperately needed support to rebuild their lives’.
The HRW called on the African Union, the United Nations, and international donors to press the Ethiopian government and all parties to the Tigray conflict, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), to halt abuses, allow rapid and unimpeded access to aid throughout northern Ethiopia, and support international investigations into alleged abuses.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Photo source: UNOCHA
