United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says there is no clear end in sight to the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
An estimated one million people have been forced to flee their homes, with many now sleeping outside or in crowded shelters, due to the conflict.
The conflict involving federal and local forces in Tigray has left hundreds dead and millions in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
It started on 04 November after the country’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, ordered the Ethiopian Defence Forces (EDF) to attack the Tigray Regional Paramilitary Police and militia loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
‘There is no clear end in sight’, UNICEF Spokesperson, James Elder, said after returning from a visit to the region.
According to the government of Ethiopia, the region had been secured by the end of November, however TPLF resistance has continued, amid accusations of extrajudicial killings and rights abuses on all sides.
‘What is really emerging now is a disturbing picture of severe and ongoing child violations, there is also unfortunately an education and nutrition emergency and I saw extensive destruction to systems on essential services that children rely on’, he added.
It is understood that among the estimated one million displaced by the violence are children who have suffered terribly.
‘The many children I spoke with, there was one, a girl who is 16, Merhawit, she had walked 300 kilometres with her baby brother on her back from the west of country, amid pretty intense fighting…300 kilometres and in broken flip-flops’, Elder said.
‘Those stories abound. She was a star in physics, and now she is searching for food and [has not] seen a classroom in a year’.
Health centres have not been spared either, with the majority now out of action.
More than 1.5 million people have been reached with emergency food distribution, with 26,000 Eritrean refugees residing in two camps also receiving food and nutrition assistance, according to World Food Programme (WFP).
Source: UN News
Photo source: UN Humanitarian
