Preliminary studies have revealed that forces of rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that are fighting against the government in northern Ethiopia raped 147 women and 17 children.
Revealing the report on Friday, the Amhara region’s women, children and social affair office head, Asnaku Dires said the studies were conducted in the parts of Ethiopia’s Amhara region cleared from ‘Terrorist forces.’
The state run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) Thursday reported that the rebel forces had gang raped an 85 years old nun in Shewa Robit, which is about 220 kilometers north east of the capital, Addis Ababa.
Chena, Nefas Mewucha, Kombolcha and Kobo are some of the places in the region where the group massacred civilians and carried out violent rape.
Women were highly vulnerable in the areas where TPLF controlled, in some places up to six months. There are still areas that are under the control of TPLF, including the historic Lalibela – one of the leading tourist destinations in the country.
Asnaku Dires said the level of psychological damage in some parts that now clear from the TPLF is worrisome.
Soon after the TPLF started the war in November 2020, there had been an orchestrated outcry by rights groups and main stream media out lets in the west against alleged cases widespread rape in the Tigray region.
However, rapes committed by the TPLF in the Afar and Amhara region of Ethiopia barely made headlines in international media outlets in what seem to be an effort to exonerate TPLF forces from the crimes the committed.
A massive protest rally is organized in Bahir Dar to bring the matter to the limelight in a way that the “international community” knows of TPLF crimes against women in the Amhara and Afar regions of Ethiopia. Federal and senior regional authorities will attend the rally, APA has learnt.
MG/abj/APA