A 27-year-old mother has revealed her horrific ordeal of being repeatedly raped by 23 soldiers for 11 days.
The Ethiopian woman said that the ordeal started while she was traveling home to her children.
However, soldiers ordered her to get off a minibus and said it was already overloaded. But as soon as she had disembarked, the uniformed men tied her up and took her to a bush camp.
For 11 days, the soldiers raped, beat, and forced nails, rocks, plastic bags, and cotton into her vagina.
Villagers found her unconscious in a bush and rushed her to a nearby hospital.
Medics said that she was bleeding from serious internal injuries and she couldn’t control her urine.
The mother also had a broken leg and couldn’t sit up properly for long periods.
Photos obtained by Reuters showed bloodstained two 3-inch nails and rock they had removed from the woman’s body.
The 27-year-old is just one of the hundreds who have reported that they were subjected to sexual violence by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers in the mountainous northern region of Ethiopia.
Other doctors from five public hospitals said most of the victims described the rapists as either Ethiopian government soldiers or allied Eritrean soldiers.
Most of the victims who have come forward are either pregnant or sustained serious physical injuries from horrific sexual abuse.
Doctors said many of the women had anal or vaginal tears, injuries that rendered them incontinent, or sexual transmitted diseases.
Young girls have also been subjected to sexual violence. Two 14-year-old girls were reportedly sexually assaulted in front of their crying families.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a speech on March 23 that ‘atrocities were being committed by raping women’ and vowed that perpetrators would receive punishment.
However, no charges have been announced by military or civilian prosecutors against the attackers.
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