Anger and collective trauma scar Ethiopia's Tigray region
The conflict in Tigray, the northern region of Ethiopia, has mostly been unfolding under a media blackout since early November. Thousands of civilians have likely died as a result of the crisis.
They were sobbing silently, waiting for their turn at the end of a dark corridor — a dozen petrified women, seeking medical check-ups in Adigrat's hospital after having been raped. None of them was willing to utter more than a few words.
Every day, Eritrean soldiers come to take medical equipment. Patients and doctors are terrified. "They come here every day, even two times per day," explained a general practitioner, who wished to remain anonymous. "Yesterday, they stole a stretcher. When they come, not only the patients, but also the staff run away. The treatments get interrupted."
Civilians raped and injured
Since fighting erupted in the Tigray region in early November, the public hospital in Adrigrat has received over 174 rape survivors. But there are fears many more could be trapped in villages.
"These [cases] are only those who have access to this hospital, but we don't know what happens in the 18 districts in the Eastern [Tigray] zone - what happens to the mothers, what happens to the other community [members]." The doctor said women are being gang-raped, drugged and gravely injured in the assaults. One woman was held captive for over ten days, raped by 23 Eritrean soldiers, then left on the side of the road. Surgeons had to remove stones and nails that had been inserted inside her genitals.
In the hospital's wards, the foul smell of wounds lies heavy in the stuffy air. Here, about 95% of the beds are occupied by civilians injured in the conflict. Some have lost limbs. One woman described how four of her children died as their home was shelled.
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