Peace for me is going to school, be with friends and playing,” says Asya Ahmed, 11, who is forced to flee from her living area and settle in new environment because of the conflict brokeout in the northern part of the country and spread to Amhara and Afar states.
AsAsya stated to UNICEF, she was scared when she heard gunshots in her village. After the northern Ethiopia conflict has spread to the Afar State she is displaced and compelled to stay in the Town of Chifra, in Afar State along with her parents.
“When I hear the gunshots, I was so frightened. People in the neighborhood were running away. We walked up to a place called Askuma. Then we spent one day there and the next day, we came to Chifra,” she added.
Asya and her family rented a small place in ChifraTown. But the young girl misses being with her best friends with whom she plays hopscotch.
Asya wants peace and she wants to go back home. But, she is not sure when she will be returned home. She also worries about her education if she will enroll in school or not in the new academic year. She would be in grade 4 if all goes well. Yet the conflict changed all that. “I don’t want to miss out on my education. I want to go back to school.”
Asya hopes to become a doctor so that she treats people with illnesses.
“Peace for me is being with family, friends and people you are familiar with. Peace means going to school and spending time with teachers and friends,” said MeseretTekuar, the other teenager who left her living town with her two younger brothers and moved to Dessie, Amhara State seeking shelter.
“When the conflict started, bullets were raining at our house. Someone in the neighborhood was also killed. We were with our grandparents and we flee for safety,” said Meseret.
Meseret was attending school in the 7th grade, but she is not sure if she would be able to continue her education in Dessie or elsewhere. Though she doesn’t know where her childhood friends are, Meseret makes new friends who have gone through a similar fate of displacement.
True, the war incited by the terrorist enterprise and expanded to the adjacent areas (Amhara and Afar states)has forced hundred thousands of people to leave their living areas andmove to adjacent areas. The war, apart from driving people to live in uncertainty, it has deprived several children of their rights to an education. Asya and Meseret are just the tip of the iceberg as the fate and dream of many more children is eclipsed by the ill intents of the terrorist TPLF group.
As to UNICEF’s recent report, overall, it is estimated that close to 3 million boys and girls across Tigray, Afar andAmhara states have missed out on learning opportunities.
The terrorist TPLF does not only violate children’s right to education through inciting war in the neighboring states, destroying and looting school infrastructure,but it has also obligated thousands of Tigrean children to be out of school.
Worse than this, it is causing greater human cost on the generation byforcibly deploying child soldiers in warfronts which is a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
“I joined the terrorist group unwillingly to secure the lives of my family.After we took a month and two weeks training at Maiknatel and travelled for three days, we entered into the battle, said SelamGoradulai, who came from Wukro Mariam and capturedat one of the warfronts.
As she stated, she was an Information Communication Technology Student in her birth place.However, delivering one person each household has becomea compulsory ordinance, she enlisted herself to secure the lives of her father and mother.
Mentioning that several teenagers are forcefully involved in warfronts, she urged the rest of sons and daughters of Tigray who have not yet join the terrorist group to refrain. She also condemned the terrorists’ misdeeds.
NiyaTewolde, 18, the other prisoner of war, came from Tenben in Tigray State. Like the other child soldiers who were deployed forcefully by the terrorist group and took a month long training, she moved through AbiAdi and entered into war.
According to her, before she was captured by members of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, she has been told a number of evil things about the army. However, after she got arrested, she has refuted all the talks and lies that were disseminated about the forces. “Members of the forces have treated us well and provided us with the food and necessary supplies,” she remarked.
Mahder Hadush is the other captive child soldier. She is also one of the other teenagers who have been sent to the Wollo Warfront as cannon fodder. She narrates the same story for the reason she joined the group- to meet the set quota at family level and secure the lives of her family.
As to her, aside from intimidating the family to assign one children from the family, the terrorists have been cheating the recruits by giving them blatant promises.
“We are on the verge of entering into Addis Ababa. When we win, we will give you job. If you fail to join us and refrain from goings to the front, your family would not receive any food ration.”
Fearing the consequence and believing their words, she went to the battle field and what has happened, happened.
Unfortunately,the greed and excessive desire of the terrorist TPLF has no end. To amass its own cheap interest, even these days it is sacrificing the son and daughter of poor Tigreyans.
Sadly enough, the terrorists in a situation they sent their own children abroad to live comfortably and attend schools, they talk with excessive pride and propagate blatantly the death of poorTigreans’ children as a patriotic ardor. However, at any rate,there is no pride in deploying child soldiers to battlefields; and they too know it well.
BY STAFF REPORTER
The Ethiopian Herald 18 November 2021
