(United Nations) UN Under-Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, returning from Ethiopia where she visited the conflict regions of Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Somali, on Friday denounced the horrors “unimaginable” imposed on women in particular, demanding justice for them.
Posted at 6:09 p.m.
“Ethiopian women, broadly speaking, have been affected in ways unimaginable” and “in your worst nightmares, you cannot imagine what has happened to women in Ethiopia,” the UN number two said during of a press conference, also indicating that he had seen victims of “famine” during his stay.
For these war-fueled horrors, “everyone is to blame” and, at the 21and century, it “is inadmissible that a human being can inflict [de telles souffrances] to another,” said Amina Mohammed, referring in particular to the fate of a young woman raped in front of her three or four-year-old son and now rejected by her husband, her family and society.
“Justice must be done and responsibilities established,” said the official, without further details on how the charges could be exercised, in Ethiopia or via an international mechanism.
“When men go to war, they come back and they’re heroes, no matter what wounds they have, aren’t they? But for women who are hurt, hurt in unimaginable ways, they don’t emerge as heroines. They are just excluded. This must stop,” said Amina Mohammed.
The conflict between Ethiopian government forces and Tigray rebels since November 2020 has left thousands dead, has been accompanied by abuses, and, according to the UN, has led hundreds of thousands of people to starvation.