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A30 world news
Diahuebs 12 augustus 2021

Amnesty reports widespread rapes 'with impunity' in Tigray

“small fraction” of the reality, since crossed into the Am- accused the human rights
Amnesty said. It interviewed hara and Afar regions in what group of “sensationalized at-
63 women, along with health they call an attempt to break tacks and smear campaigns”
workers. the blockade on their land against the government,
and pressure Prime Minister while Eritrea’s informa-
A dozen women described Abiy Ahmed to step down. tion minister Yemane Ge-
being held for days or weeks bremeskel in a tweet accused
while being raped multiple While Ethiopian and allied Amnesty of having a “hostile
times, usually by several men. forces retreated from much agenda” against his country,
And 12 other women said of Tigray in June, some re- which borders the Tigray re-
they were raped in front of main in western Tigray, and gion to the north.
family members. Five wom- Ethiopia’s government on
en said they were pregnant at Tuesday essentially aban- Earlier this year, Ethiopia’s
the time they were assaulted. doned its unilateral cease-fire government said three sol-
Two said they had nails, grav- as Abiy called all able citizens diers had been convicted and
el and shrapnel shoved into to fight. 25 others indicted for rape
(AP) — Dozens of women their vaginas. and other acts of sexual vio-
have described shocking She would not speculate on The Amnesty report calls for lence. But Amnesty said no
sexual assaults by Ethiopi- whether any leader gave the “I don’t know if they realized accountability for the sexual information has been made
an soldiers and allied forc- signal to rape, which the re- I was a person,” one woman violence during the conflict, available about those trials or
es in the country’s Tigray port says was intended to hu- told Amnesty, describing saying rape and sexual slavery other measures to bring per-
conflict, says an Amnesty miliate both the women and how she was attacked in her constitute war crimes. Many petrators to justice.
International report pub- their Tigrayan ethnic group. home by three men. She was women in Tigray now live
lished Wednesday, and its In her years of work inves- four months pregnant at the with the physical and mental A spokesman for the attor-
researcher calls it striking tigating atrocities around the time. effects of the assaults includ- ney general’s office did not
how the perpetrators ap- world, these are some of the ing HIV infections and con- respond to a request for an
peared to act without fear worst, Rovera said. The AP separately has spoken tinued bleeding, it said. update Wednesday on any in-
of punishment from their with women who described vestigations.
commanders. More than 1,200 cases of sex- being gang-raped by com- In a statement responding to
ual violence were document- batants allied with the Ethio- the Amnesty report, Ethio- Ethiopia’s government has
“All of these forces from the ed by health centers in Tigray pian military, notably soldiers pia’s government said it had not allowed human rights
very beginning, everywhere, between February and April from neighboring Eritrea but previously acknowledged researchers into the Tigray
and for a long period of time alone, Amnesty said. No one also fighters with the neigh- that “some members of the region, though a joint inves-
felt it was perfectly OK with knows the real toll during the boring Amhara region. armed forces have engaged tigation into alleged atrocities
them to perpetrate these nine-month conflict, as most in conduct that is contrary to is underway by the United
crimes because they clearly of the health facilities across Amnesty has not received the clear rules of engagement Nations human rights office
felt they could do so with im- the region of 6 million people allegations against Tigray and direction they have been and the government-created
punity, nothing holding them were looted or destroyed. forces, who regained con- given.” Ethiopian Human Rights
back,” Donatella Rovera told trol of much of the Tigray Commission.
The Associated Press. These numbers are likely a region in late June and have Ethiopia’s statement also

Italy swelters as Spain, Portugal brace for coming heat wave

(AP) — Italy baked in sweltering network since its installation in 2002.
temperatures that continued to However, the high-pressure system Such peaks of temperature are not
drive deadly wildfires Wednesday, The highest temperature ever re- of near-record strength currently unheard of in Spain and Portugal
with Spain and Portugal brac- corded on the European continent centered over the Mediterranean is during the summer months. Even
ing for the arrival of a dangerous is 48 degrees Celsius (118.40 degrees the type that can produce unprec- so, climate scientists say there is lit-
heat wave that has grilled south- Fahrenheit) in 1977 in Athens. edented heat somewhere, meteorolo- tle doubt climate change from the
eastern Europe and is starting gist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Con- burning of coal, oil and natural gas is
to push west toward the Iberian The Sicily temperature could not be nections said. driving extreme events, such as heat
peninsula. independently confirmed, however, waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and
and Italy’s air force meteorological North Africa is also flirting with all- storms.
A heat wave fed by hot air from North service said it had not recorded tem- time high temperatures, he said.
Africa has engulfed large parts of the peratures approaching that high on Researchers can directly link a single
Mediterranean region in recent days, Wednesday but that its stations are in Spain and Portugal could see what event to climate change only through
contributing to massive wildfires other locations so variations are to be was heading their way, as tempera- intensive data analysis, but they say
and killing dozens of people in Italy, expected. tures on the Iberian peninsula were such calamities are expected to hap-
Turkey and Algeria. In Greece, huge forecast to start building from Thurs- pen more frequently on our warming
wildfires have ravaged forests for a The World Meteorological Organiza- day. planet.
week, destroying homes and forcing tion said it would examine the read-
evacuations. ing but Randy Cerveny, the agency’s Portugal’s prime minister warned that Portuguese Prime Minister António
rapporteur for weather records, called the hot weather increases the threat of Costa urged people to take special
Sicily recorded Wednesday what may it “suspicious, so we’re not going to wildfires, which in 2017 killed more care amid the scorching weather and
be a new European temperature re- make any immediate determination.” than 100 people in his country. wildfire danger, adding that many
cord, though weather experts cau- wildfires start with careless behavior.
tioned that the measurement still “It doesn’t sound terribly plausible,” Spain’s weather service forecast a heat
must be confirmed. Cerveny said. “But we’re not going to wave through Monday and said tem- Costa said “the terrible images” from
dismiss it.” peratures could surpass 44 degrees Greece and Turkey in recent days
The Sicily region’s agriculture-mete- Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) in brought back Portuguese memories
orological information service, SIAS, WMO spokeswoman Sylvie Caston- some areas. of 2017.
reported that a temperature of 48.8 guay counseled caution: “Extreme
degrees Celsius (119.84 degrees Fahr- weather and climate events are often “The maximum and minimum tem- “We don’t want to see that scenario
enheit) was reached at the island’s sensationalized and mischaracterized peratures will reach levels far above here again,” Costa said in a videotaped
Syracuse station. The agency said as ‘records’ before they have been the normal for this time of the year,” message at his official residence.
on its Facebook page it is the highest thoroughly investigated and properly Spain’s weather service, AEMET, said
temperature registered in the entire validated.” in a “special weather warning.”