LE Monde Africa Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, “die or be raped”, the only choice for thousands of women during the occupation of the rebel province of Tigray Self-help associations estimate that 15% of women contracted HIV during the civil war and fear an epidemic due to lack of screening and care campaigns. By Noé Hochet-Bodin (Makalé, Ethiopia, special correspondent) Published today at 06:00 • Reading 4 min. abitants were a model in the ght against AIDS in Ethiopia. The prevalence rate (the number of infected people) had fallen to 1.43%. Then, starting in November 2020, war hit this mountainous and arid province, the cradle of Ethiopian civilization. Unbelievably violent, the clashes which took on a strong ethnic dimension would have caused up to 600,000 deaths according to the toll established by the African Union. They were also accompanied Women displaced in 2022 in the village of Silse, about a hundred kilometers from Semera, in the Afar region, where the war between the central power and the rebel province of Tigray has spread. EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP by numerous rapes. Regional authorities in Tigray estimate the number of victims of sexual abuse at 120,000. " Time bomb " “A grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter were raped by the same Eritrean soldiers in the suburb of Shire, in central Tigray, in December 2020,” says Meseret Hadush, misty-eyed, from her oce in Makalé , the regional capital. These women from three generations are now HIV positive. This is a tragedy for the future of Tigray. » The region is still struggling to recover from the civil war. Cripples and broken faces are everywhere in town. In Makalé, where refugee camps still number in the dozens, begging has become the only means of subsistence for all these displaced people in their own country. Economic activity is almost at a standstill and drought has brought hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans to the brink of famine. Hospitals are struggling to regain their pre-war capacity. Read also | In Ethiopia, the famine in Tigray, a political battle “At least we have antiretrovirals,” Fisseha Berhane, head of the ght against AIDS at the regional health oce, tries to be positive. Because Tigray was sorely lacking during the two years of the conict. “ Because of the blockade, HIV-positive people were taking, at best, expired antiretroviral drugs ,” he says. The clashes damaged or destroyed 70% of hospitals, according to the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). “We have lost track of 9,000 of the 46,000 patients listed before the war ,” notes Fisseha Berhane, preferring to use the term “disappeared” rather than “dead .