“Sons of Eritrea, we are brave,” the note reads. “We have committed ourselves to this, and we will continue doing it. We will make Tigrayan females infertile.”
The Guardian Warning: this article contains extremely graphic and distressing testimony and images
Tens of thousands of Tigrayan women report brutal wartime abuse by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, such as gang-rape and the insertion of objects into their uteruses. But justice seems a distant prospect
- Photographs and reporting by Ximena Borrazas
For two years, Tseneat carried her rape inside her. The agony never faded. It attacked her from the inside out. The remnants of the attack stayed in Tseneat’s womb – not as a memory or metaphor, but a set of physical objects:
Eight rusted screws.
A steel pair of nail clippers.
A note, written in ballpoint pen and wrapped in plastic.
“Sons of Eritrea, we are brave,” the note reads. “We have committed ourselves to this, and we will continue doing it. We will make Tigrayan females infertile.”
The objects, revealed by X-ray and surgically extracted by doctors more than two years later, were forced inside Tseneat as she lay unconscious after being gang-raped by six soldiers.
A handwritten note by Eritrean soldiers, extracted from the uterus of a rape survivor. Translation: ‘Sons of Eritrea, we are brave. We have committed ourselves to this, and we will continue doing it. We will make Tigrayan females infertile. We are still determined to retaliate for 1998’. Photograph: Ximena Borrazas
She is one of tens of thousands of Tigrayan women subjected to the most extreme forms of sexual violence, in attacks designed to destroy their fertility. Medical records and X-rays obtained by the Guardian and reviewed by independent medical specialists show a pattern of cases where women have had foreign bodies forced into their reproductive organs, including nails, screws, plastic rubbish, sand, gravel and letters. Under international law, it is genocide to destroy fertility or prevent births with the intention of wholly or partly destroying an ethnic group.
From now on, no Tigrayan will give birth to another Tigrayan
Note extracted from a woman’s uterus
The letters – written by their rapists, wrapped in plastic and inserted into the women’s uteruses – make their intentions clear. Several mention bitter border disputes with Tigray in the 1990s, and promise vengeance.
In another note, extracted by the hospital from a different woman, is written:
“Have you forgotten what you did to us in the 90s? We did not forget. From now on, no Tigrayan will give birth to another Tigrayan.”
Read the full story on the Guardian
