The Ethiopian government has acknowledged rapes allegedly perpetrated by its troops and allied fighters. Three soldiers were convicted in May and dozens of others have been indicted. But these few cases do not come close to providing justice for what appears to be mass, systematic rape, according to Mussie Tesfay Atsbaha, the chief administrative and business director at Ayder Hospital. Besides putting women in danger of diseases, he said, injuries and unwanted pregnancies, along with widespread sexual crimes, have devastated families and entire communities. At the community center, the women and girls describing the rapes to VOA covered their faces with scarves and masks to avoid being caught on camera. They said they all were staying in a safe house in an undisclosed location with about 100 other survivors and their children. They said they were living in hiding because they were afraid of retribution for reporting, in desperate need of medical care and, in some cases, being shunned by their families because they had been raped.
SOURCE: VOA