The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) condemned, on Saturday August 27, the air strike having the day before "hit a kindergarten" in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

The EU and the UK, for their part, called for respect for international law protecting civilians.

The UNICEF statement is the first international confirmation that a kindergarten has been hit, as claimed by the rebel authorities in Tigray, the Ethiopian government having assured for its part that it is targeting only "military targets".

"UNICEF strongly condemns the airstrike in Mekele, capital of the Tigray region of Ethiopia. The strike hit a kindergarten, killing several children and injuring several", denounced the executive director of the organization, Catherine Russell, in a tweet.

"Once again, children have paid a heavy price for an escalation of violence in northern Ethiopia. For nearly two years, children and their families in the region have suffered the horrors of this conflict. It must end", she added.

UNICEF strongly condemns the air strike in Mekelle, the capital city of the Tigray Region, Ethiopia.

The strike hit a kindergarten, killing several children, and injuring others.

UNICEF calls on all parties to agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities.

— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) August 26, 2022

The Ethiopian government did not react immediately to these UN declarations.

"Civilians are not a target"

Without mentioning the target hit, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, "condemned" this strike "which resulted in the death of civilians" and "called for respect for international humanitarian law".

"Civilians are not a target," he tweeted.

"Reports of airstrikes in Tigray causing civilian casualties are appalling. All parties must uphold international humanitarian law and make the protection of civilians their priority," tweeted Britain's Under-Secretary of State for the United Kingdom. Africa, Vicky Ford.

An official at Ayder Hospital, the principal of the city of Mekele, said in a message to AFP on Friday that his establishment had received four dead, including two children, and nine injured.

Tigray's state television said "seven civilians including three children" had been killed and released footage showing what looks like a devastated playground and a building with walls painted in brightly colored designs damaged.

Journalists do not have access to northern Ethiopia, making independent verification impossible.

The mobile network and the Internet are also uncertain there and no official could be reached on Saturday in Tigray.

A "barbaric" strike, according to the boss of the WHO

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, himself from Tigray, tweeted "running out of words" in the face of "this terrible event and loss of innocent life". , calling the strike "barbaric".

This terrible event and loss of innocent lives reminds me of the air strike by Eritrea in same city, Mekelle, #Tigray, in 1998 where my own children escaped narrowly.

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) August 26, 2022

Fighting resumed on Wednesday in northern Ethiopia, ending a five-month truce between the federal government and the rebel authorities in Tigray, who mutually blame each other for the resumption of hostilities.

Until the strike on Mekele on Friday, clashes were limited to two areas around the southeastern border of Tigray.

The situation on the ground remained difficult to assess, the combat theater areas being unreachable on Saturday.

The rebels claimed that a plane had "dropped bombs on a residential area and a kindergarten".

The Ethiopian government responded that Ethiopian military aviation only targeted "military sites" and accused the Tigrayan rebels of staging "to claim that the aviation attacked civilians".

Hopes for peace never realized

Friday's strike marks an escalation feared by the international community, which is worried about a resumption of large-scale conflict and fears that the meager hopes of peace negotiations glimpsed since June, but never materialized, will be dashed.

As of Wednesday, many countries and international organizations, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union in the lead, had called for a cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

The toll of this murderous war, marked by numerous abuses committed by each side, is largely unknown.

But it has displaced more than two million people and plunged hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians into near-famine conditions, according to the United Nations.

In early March, weeks before the truce, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Ethiopian airstrikes had killed more than 300 civilians in the previous three months.

With AFP

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