TPLF Killed Over 200 Civilians including Children in Afar Region

At least 200 people, including more than 100 children, were killed in an attack on a village in the Afar region of Ethiopia, regional officials and hospital sources told the BBC Amharic. Ahmed Koloyta, the region’s head of communications, said that the attack on displaced families sheltering at a health facility and a school was carried out by Tigray rebel forces.

The Head of Afar Children, Youth and Women’s Affairs Bureau, Ayisha Yasin, told Walta that more than 200 civilians has been killed by heavy artillery shelling TPLF forces have fired on Gale Koma district of Afar Region last Thursday.

UNICEF has condemned the horrific killings of over 200 people, including 107 children by the terrorist TPLF in an attack on displaced families sheltering at a health facility and a school in the Afar region.

It was to be recalled that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power during her visit to Ethiopia last week has expressed concern over the terrorist TPLF’s military movements in the neighboring Amhara and Afar regional states of Ethiopia.

The statement issued by UNICEF today said that “UNICEF is extremely alarmed by the reported killing of over 200 people, including more than 100 children, in attacks on displaced families sheltering at a health facility and a school in Afar region”.

Despite the unilateral humanitarian ceasefire declared by the government of Ethiopia, the terrorist group has continued its provocative attacks in the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

Some international media outlets have also reported the fact that the terrorist TPLF has been intensifying the conflict in neighboring regions by rejecting the government’s unilateral humanitarian ceasefire.

According to Aljazeera, for instance, the attack orchestrated by the terrorist TPLF in the Afar region has targeted cities and schools in the “Kalikuma” area.

The attack by the terrorist TPLF against civilians left over 200 people dead, of which more than 100 are children.

Several media reports have revealed that TPLF has been deploying child soldiers to its ongoing provocative acts by ignoring international laws.

The group is also deliberately engaged in blocking humanitarian aid to the people in Tigray while according to UNICEF’s statement, alarmed that “a 10-fold increase in the number of children who will suffer from life-threatening malnutrition in Tigray over the next 12 months.”

Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has been designated as a terrorist group by Ethiopian House of People Representatives.

TPLF has ruled Ethiopia through iron feast for almost three decades before turning a rebel group designated as terrorist. TPLF was a rebel group before capturing state power in 1991.

According to Ayisha, the targeted civilians were sheltered in a school serving as an IDP Center located near a warehouse stocking food aid.

“The warehouse stocks the aid needs of more than 30 thousand people,” Ayisha said.

“200 bodies have been found so far while more than 48 are still missing,” she added.

Out of the 200 bodies found so far, 107 are children (48 of them girls and 59 is boys), 32 women and 61 are male (youngsters and above) , the office head told Walta.

“The victims are civilians who have no role in the ongoing conflict. What happened in Gale Koma is pure ethnic cleansing,” said Ayisha.

More than 30 people who sustained different injuries are currently receiving treatment at Dubti Hospital, she explained.

On the other hand, the Head of the Afar Region President Office, Golbe Sile, said that TPLF has been trying to attack the region in two fronts; Yalo and Uwa.

“The enemy force has been weakened in recent attacks. As a result of that, it is rotating its remaining forces,” he said.

“Since the enemy fire heavy artillery on areas occupied by civilian resident, more than eighty percent of the causality so far is civilians,” he added.

According to Golbe, more than 30 TPLF fighters have surrendered while hundreds of them have been incapacitated yesterday.

As a result of that, ‘’our special force and militia have seized strategic areas,” he concluded.