The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday said the crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray has entered its sixth month with no clear end in sight, reported UN News.
“The crisis in Tigray has entered its sixth month with no clear end in sight,” said James Elder, the UNICEF spokesperson, after visiting the northern Ethiopian region on Tuesday.
Elder said over 1 million people have been displaced as fighting continues in the Tigray region where security remained a major issue.
The conflict is the result of traction between the Ethiopian Government and the dominant regional force, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In November last year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government launched a military operation against the TPLF forces after it attacked the Ethiopian defense forces stationed in the Tigray regional state, killing soldiers and looting sizable military hardware.
Although Prime Minister Abiy ended the military operation in November end, sporadic fighting continued in the state. Hundreds of thousands of people got displaced while more than 60,000 fled the fighting to neighboring countries.
Elder said the UNICEF is concerned about the harm that the crisis is causing to children.
“Children in Tigray have been hit by COVID-19, then conflict. That means 1.4 million children have been out of school for more than a full year [since March 2020]. Yes, not a day of school in 13 months,” the UNICEF spokesperson said.
Elder said he met a 16-year-old girl who fled fighting in the western part of Tigray and walked with her baby brother on her back for about 300 kilometers (186 miles).
“This is also an education and nutrition emergency,” he said, adding that he saw extensive destruction to the systems and essential services on which children rely.
The UNICEF spokesperson urged all those with influence on the military actors involved in the conflict to condemn rights abuses against civilians.
