Sexual and reproductive violence such as forced pregnancy was systematically committed during and after the war in Ethiopia's Tigray region, two human rights NGOs said in a report, constituting "war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The northern region endured a brutal civil war from 2020 until 2022, pitching Ethiopian federal forces, supported by the Eritrean army and local militias, against a local political party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
Some 600,000 people died during the conflict, and all sides were accused of committing atrocities.
The 88-page report released Thursday by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH) includes interviews with 500 healthcare and case workers revealing a picture of "widespread, systematic and deliberate" conflict-related sexual and reproductive violence.
"Such acts constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity of sexual violence, forced pregnancy, sexual enslavement and persecution on the intersection of ethnic, gender, age and political grounds," it said.
"Perpetrators have operated with impunity, victims have been silenced," Lindsey Green, PHR deputy director of research, told AFP.
The organisations called for further investigations to determine whether "crimes of genocide" were committed.
"On the term of genocide, we do not have the data to make that determination, but there was clear intention expressed by perpetrators to decimate the Tigrayan ethnic group and physical injuries consistent with this," said Green.
- 'Break you' -
The violence was "often perpetrated by individuals who spoke languages or wore uniforms indicating affiliation with the Eritrean military", the report said.
Other perpetrators included members of the Ethiopian army, as well as other groups supporting the government, including armed groups from the neighbouring Amhara region.
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel declined to comment on the report when asked by AFP.
An Ethiopian federal army spokesperson and Amhara authorities did not respond to queries.
The report emphasises that women and girls were targeted "specifically because of their ethnic identity as Tigrayan".
It found that 73 percent of healthcare workers had treated patients who said their attackers "had used language indicating intent to destroy their ability to have children", while nearly half said assaults were intended to cause unwanted pregnancies.
Almost 60 percent said they had treated women whose attackers had deliberately attempted to infect them with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
"The perpetrators were not motivated by sexual desire but rather by a desire to inflict pain and suffering," a reproductive health coordinator in Tigray told researchers.
Other abuse included objects being inserted into women's wombs, including nails, stones and plastic-wrapped papers scrawled with anti-Tigrayan messages, that were later discovered by healthcare workers.
"On average, women we have treated have been raped by between five and eight people, with some experiencing assaults by as many as 14 perpetrators," said one interviewee.
A Tigrayan psychologist said there were women "who were raped by the soldiers while their brother and husband are standing in front of them".
Atrocities have continued across several regions of Ethiopia due to the lack of accountability, the report said.
Victims have suffered psychological and physical impacts, including damaged reproductive organs and infections such as HIV and hepatitis.
Many suffered multiple forms of harm, said one health worker: "Foreign objects entering their reproductive areas, beatings, economic harm, psychological harm and insults that make you hate yourself and be ashamed and break you."
