allAfrica.com: Ethiopia: Mass Sexual Violence By Troops in Ogaden Region - Witnesses (Page 1 of 1)
Abdinasir Mohamed Guled
In its battle against rebels in eastern Ethiopia's Somali Region, Ethiopia's army has subjected Somali civilian women to rape in the remote areas of Ethiopia.
Some sources in the Ogaden region say that the Ethiopian troops have additionally raped female Somali detainees by government soldiers at military bases in Wardheer, Dhagahbur, Kabridahar, Jijiga, Shilabo, Duhun, and Fiiq towns, and many smaller military bases in the conflict-affected zones, indicating that rape is a widespread abuse in the region.
Some of them were raped in their villages/houses.
A farmer from Ogaden told that Ethiopian soldiers had strangled his wife to death with a rope; the wife had been nursing the couple's one-year-old son when she was killed.
A 25-year-old woman told Shabelle Ethiopian soldiers visited her village each night and picked a new girl to be gang-raped.
A staff member of Doctors Without Borders said she saw Ethiopian soldiers chasing women and children away from water-wells to flowering shrub areas for rape.
Ethiopia claims that it's conducting a counterinsurgency operation in Ogaden.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group, murdered more than 70 people at a Chinese-run oil field in the region this past April.
Many civilians living in the conflict zone are nomads who must move to fresh grazing areas and regional markets to sell their livestock but on their the ethiopian troops rape the women.
Since mid-2007, Ethiopian forces have imposed a series of measures aimed at cutting off economic support to the ONLF, including a trade blockade on the war-affected region, restricted access to water, food and grazing areas, confiscation of livestock and trade goods, and obstruction of humanitarian assistance.
In combination with the drought produced by successive poor rains, this "economic war" is threatening the lives of thousands of civilians, yet many of them lack access to food aid due to government manipulation of food distribution.
"Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us" Ogadenian woman Fatima Said said.
"The second time they took me, they raped me. It is hard to talk about, a man who is more powerful than you can do whatever he wants to you, so they violated me and raped me as they wanted. All three of the men raped me, consecutively. Then we were returned to the hole" she lemently said.
In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day's walk from their homes in Fiiq zone.
The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries sources said.
The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers.
Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled.
The region, which is around 400,000 square kilometres, borders Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia and It is at the heart of a dispute between the Ethiopian government and Somalia's Islamic rulers.
Abdinasir Mohamed Guled
In its battle against rebels in eastern Ethiopia's Somali Region, Ethiopia's army has subjected Somali civilian women to rape in the remote areas of Ethiopia.
Some sources in the Ogaden region say that the Ethiopian troops have additionally raped female Somali detainees by government soldiers at military bases in Wardheer, Dhagahbur, Kabridahar, Jijiga, Shilabo, Duhun, and Fiiq towns, and many smaller military bases in the conflict-affected zones, indicating that rape is a widespread abuse in the region.
Some of them were raped in their villages/houses.
A farmer from Ogaden told that Ethiopian soldiers had strangled his wife to death with a rope; the wife had been nursing the couple's one-year-old son when she was killed.
A 25-year-old woman told Shabelle Ethiopian soldiers visited her village each night and picked a new girl to be gang-raped.
A staff member of Doctors Without Borders said she saw Ethiopian soldiers chasing women and children away from water-wells to flowering shrub areas for rape.
Ethiopia claims that it's conducting a counterinsurgency operation in Ogaden.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group, murdered more than 70 people at a Chinese-run oil field in the region this past April.
Many civilians living in the conflict zone are nomads who must move to fresh grazing areas and regional markets to sell their livestock but on their the ethiopian troops rape the women.
Since mid-2007, Ethiopian forces have imposed a series of measures aimed at cutting off economic support to the ONLF, including a trade blockade on the war-affected region, restricted access to water, food and grazing areas, confiscation of livestock and trade goods, and obstruction of humanitarian assistance.
In combination with the drought produced by successive poor rains, this "economic war" is threatening the lives of thousands of civilians, yet many of them lack access to food aid due to government manipulation of food distribution.
"Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us" Ogadenian woman Fatima Said said.
"The second time they took me, they raped me. It is hard to talk about, a man who is more powerful than you can do whatever he wants to you, so they violated me and raped me as they wanted. All three of the men raped me, consecutively. Then we were returned to the hole" she lemently said.
In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day's walk from their homes in Fiiq zone.
The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries sources said.
The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers.
Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled.
The region, which is around 400,000 square kilometres, borders Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia and It is at the heart of a dispute between the Ethiopian government and Somalia's Islamic rulers.
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