Ethiopian parents call for help to evacuate students stranded by the Tigray War
ADDIS ABABA – Parents of thousands of Ethiopian students stranded in the war-ravaged northern Tigray region on Friday asked for help evacuating them after the main university warned it could not feed them any longer in due to food and cash shortages.
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The University of Mekelle, which receives its budget from the federal government, posted a notice on its Facebook page on Thursday stating that its bank accounts have been blocked and that the federal government has not sent its funds for this year.
He said he was running out of money to feed the students and that from July 27 he would stop taking responsibility for them.
The higher education ministry did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the situation at the university.
“We are asking the UN to bring our children from Tigray,” Berhanu Tegeneh, a representative of a parents’ committee, told Reuters as hundreds of parents flocked to the UN office in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to present their request.
Berhanu, from Addis Ababa, said he had not been able to speak to his daughter, a fourth-year student at Mekelle University, since the phone lines were cut off on June 29, the day after the resumption. by the Tigrayan forces from the regional capital Mekelle.
A spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the parents’ requests.
The parents’ committee said students were stranded at four universities in Tigray, including Mekelle, after the conflict severed communications and transport links. Banks are no longer functioning and more than 90 percent of Tigrayans need food assistance, according to OCHA. Food convoys have been suspended since Sunday when trucks came under fire.
War erupted in Tigray in November between the Ethiopian army and the ruling party in the region, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF). Three weeks later, the government declared victory when it captured Mekelle, but the TPLF continued to fight.
At the end of June, the TPLF regained control of Mekelle and most of Tigray after the withdrawal of government soldiers.
In its notice, Mekelle University said it transported around 5,000 students to neighboring Afar state on July 18, but education officials who expected to receive them failed to stop. never presented. The buses returned to Mekelle, according to the university.
Reuters could not independently verify this account. Afar officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The conflict has spread from Tigray to Afar this week, threatening a key road connecting the Ethiopian capital to the port of Djibouti.
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