“Hyenas eat corpses, eight-year-old girls are in a hurry”

The horror of war in the countryside Tigray of Ethiopia describes a nun, who asks to remain anonymous for her safety. The nun works in Meckele, the capital of Tigray, and the surrounding area, helping tens of thousands of people displaced by violence.

People seek refuge in camps, hoping for shelter and food. Both are difficult to find. Humanitarian aid is largely blocked and civilians are killed on the streets or taken to crowded prisons.

“After the last few months I am happy to be alive. I have to be fine. “We mostly go to IDP camps and centers where people are,” he told the British Guardian. “Compared to other areas, Meckele is much better, although I find it chaotic to need 40 to 65 people sleeping in one room. For 3,000 to 6,000 people there are four toilets for women and four for men. Sanitary conditions are poor, water is not always available. Food and medicine; you can hardly find them “.

As he describes, “it all happened very quickly. It was shocking for us. So sudden. We had a normal life, things were getting better. We had plans to expand the program to feed and educate students. But one day everything stopped because of the coronavirus. And then, as if in one day, the war. In the last three months we have been trying to feed 25,000 displaced people in 23 centers. Many, many people have hurry».

The nun explains that many people have lost family members. Others worry about where their relatives are. Some are outside without a home, others’ houses have been occupied. “People are worried, they are anxious, they are sad, they are angry. “They are really worried about the future.”

“Rape in front of relatives and spouses”

“When I think about our lives a year ago, we had peace and signs of growth in all areas, in water supply, communication systems. It gave you inspiration, hope. But now the hospitals have been attacked, looted, destroyed. Now this is like a piece of history. “In a few months,” he says.

Describing the atrocities, he notes that in Meckele “the bombing has now stopped, but continues not far from us. The corpses are left to be eaten by the hyenas, they do not even have the dignity of burial.

Rapes are committed on girls as young as 8 and women as young as 72. They are so widespread, you see them everywhere, thousands. Rape takes place in public, in front of relatives, in spouses, in front of everyone. They cut off their arms and legs, all in the same way.

You wonder if those who do this are human beings. I do not know who trains these people. Where there are soldiers from Eritrea or Ethiopia. Tragedy. Every woman, not just once. It is done intentionally. So much looting, fighting, rape. Everything is aimed at the citizens “.

It is noted that The clashes in Tigray broke out in November between government troops and the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed has also claimed that troops from neighboring Eritrea were in the area.

The violence in Tigray has cost thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes in this mountainous region of about five million people. The United Nations has sounded the alarm about the atrocities, and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called these actions ethnic cleansing.

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