Amnesty Documents Mass Sexual Violence by OLA Rebels in Ethiopia Conflict

A new Amnesty International briefing accuses rebels from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) of carrying out widespread abuses against civilians in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, including rape, gang rape, sexual slavery and killings between 2020 and 2024, acts the organization says may constitute war crimes.

The report documents attacks in Sayo and Anfillo districts of the Kellem Wallaga zone, part of Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region. Oromia spans roughly one-third of Ethiopia’s territory and is home to about 40 million people.

Fighting between the OLA insurgent group and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) began in 2019 and continues to affect civilian communities.

Amnesty International said it interviewed 10 survivors of sexual violence for the briefing, including seven who were minors at the time of the assaults. The organization also collected testimony from healthcare workers and reviewed medical records.

According to Amnesty, nine survivors said they were assaulted by OLA rebels, while one reported violence from both OLA rebels and an ENDF soldier. The group said five survivors were held in sexual slavery, and two became pregnant as a result of the assaults.

One survivor described repeated abuse during captivity. “They used to rape us every day, twice a day. Around 11am and 6pm,” said a survivor identified as Sebontu, who was 12 years old at the time of the attack and is now 17.

Another survivor described prolonged abuse during captivity. “For three weeks, 15 men were raping my child and me. They used to take turns,” said Lalistu, who said she and her daughter were held by rebels with their hands tied to a tree while the assaults occurred.

Amnesty said the attacks occurred during a broader conflict between the OLA and Ethiopian government forces that has intensified in western Oromia since 2019.

Amnesty said restrictions on communication and media access in parts of Oromia have made it difficult for both domestic and international observers to assess the scale of abuses during the conflict.

Survivors told investigators that they believed the assaults were carried out as retaliation because family members had links to government forces. Some women said their husbands, fathers or brothers were members of the military or regional security forces.

In one case documented by Amnesty, rebels killed a survivor’s husband when he tried to intervene during an attack.

Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, said the abuses were enabled by conditions that prevented independent monitoring.

These cowardly acts were partly enabled by a communication blackout that shut out the rest of world to the sustained atrocities against civilians.

Amnesty’s Regional Director Tigere Chagutah

Chagutah added that the abuses “may amount to war crimes.”

The organization called on Ethiopian authorities to conduct immediate and impartial investigations and to ensure accountability for violations.

It also urged the OLA to order rebels to comply with international humanitarian law and to disarm units responsible for abuses.

The Oromia conflict is one of several armed crises affecting Ethiopia, a country of roughly 130 million people.

The country emerged from a war in the Tigray region between 2020 and 2022, which the African Union estimates killed at least 600,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced in northern Ethiopia, and there are concerns about renewed instability in the region.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Amhara region has experienced fighting between federal forces and local rebels since 2023, adding to the country’s overlapping security and humanitarian crises.