Hundreds of health workers across Tigray have documented mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, in systematic attacks that amount to crimes against humanity, a new report has found.
The research, compiled by Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH), represents the most comprehensive documentation yet of weaponized sexual violence in Tigray. Legal analysis of the medical record data and health worker testimony found conclusive evidence of crimes against humanity, including mass rape, forced pregnancy, and enforced sterilization. The authors outline evidence of systematic attacks designed to destroy the fertility of Tigrayan women and call for international bodies to investigate the crime of genocide.
The report covered the conflict and post-conflict period to 2024, and concluded that weaponized sexual violence has continued since the ceasefire, and expanded to new regions. “The perpetrators must be punished, and the situation must be resolved,” one health worker said. “True healing requires justice.”
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