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Hundreds of people have died and thousands have fled across Ethiopia’s northern border into neighboring Sudan as clashes between federal troops and local forces continue in the Tigray region.
An Ethiopian boy who fled the war in the Tigray region carries his plate as he queues for rations of wet food at Um-Rakoba camp, on the Sudan-Ethiopia border in Al-Qadarif state, Sudan , on November 19, 2020 (Reuters).
The UN agency for children has said that the outbreak of conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has left some 2.3 million children in urgent need of assistance and thousands more at risk in refugee camps. .
Tigray has been rocked by bloody fighting since November 4, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced the launch of military operations against the regional government that had opposed the postponement of the country’s national elections, once scheduled for August, due to the pandemic and the extension of Abiy’s time in office.
“Within the Tigray region, restricted access and ongoing communications blackouts have left some 2.3 million children in need of humanitarian assistance and out of reach,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said on Friday. .
The agency estimates that “some 12,000 children, some of them without parents or relatives, are among those who are sheltering in camps and registration centers and are at risk.”
READ MORE: Ethiopian PM promises ‘final and crucial’ offensive in Tigray
Worsening humanitarian crisis
In September, the people of Tigray voted in an election, defying the federal government and increasing tensions in a region of some 5 million people that, despite its small share of Ethiopia’s population of 110 million, has had an influence. huge.
The move was a dramatic escalation of a long-running dispute between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Abiy took office in 2018.
Hundreds of people have died in the clashes and thousands have fled across Ethiopia’s northern border into neighboring Sudan.
Many of the makeshift camps established in Sudan are overcrowded and the refugees have been struggling with unsanitary conditions, limited access to water and food.
READ MORE: Civilians starve in Tigray, Ethiopia, as fighting continues
Urgent assistance
The UN agency said it has tried to provide urgent assistance and vital support for children living in “extremely harsh” conditions in the camps.
Fore urged all parties to the conflict to allow humanitarian access and refrain from using explosives in densely populated areas.
“Every effort should be made to keep children out of harm’s way and to ensure that they are protected from recruitment and use in conflict,” he said.
READ MORE: Ethiopia’s Abiy government blames rebels for serious crimes in Tigray
Source: AFP
