The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF on Saturday condemned an air strike on a kindergarten in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, in which at least four people including two children were killed and nine got injured, reported The Africa News.
The air strike in Tigray’s capital Mekele came days after fighting between government forces and Tigrayan rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) erupted on the region’s southern border, ending a five-month truce.
“UNICEF strongly condemns the airstrike… (that) hit a kindergarten, killing several children, and injuring others,” the UN organization’s executive director Catherine Russell wrote on Twitter.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the air raid demolished a kindergarten and hit a civilian residential area, claims that the federal government has denied. The Ethiopian government said it only targeted military sites, and accused the TPLF of staging civilian deaths.
Many countries and international organizations continue to call for a cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution to the 21-month conflict.
The war in northern Ethiopia, which broke out in November 2020, has killed several thousand people, displaced more than two million and plunged hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians into near-starvation conditions, according to the United Nations.
The truce reached in March allowed the gradual resumption of the delivery of humanitarian aid by road to Tigray, after three months of interruption.
Since the end of June, the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan rebels have repeatedly stated their willingness to enter into peace negotiations, but continue to disagree on the modalities.
The federal government wants immediate talks without preconditions, under the aegis of the African Union (AU). But, the TPLF leaders are demanding the restoration of electricity, telecommunications and banking services to Tigray and reject the mediation of AU High Representative Olusegun Obasanjo.
Earlier this week, the UNICEF warned that children in the Horn of Africa and the vast Sahel region could likely die in devastating numbers in absence of urgent intervention and support. In the last five months, the number of people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia without reliable access to safe water, has risen from 9.5 million to 16.2 million.
