BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
ADDIS ABABA- Child soldiers and mothers with young ones strapped to their backs sent into battle with little chance of return all because of a lust for power, said Valerie Browning, Ethiopia-based Australian nurse.
Recently Browning visited the frontline herself.What she witnessed was a thing of nightmares: Bloodied young soldiers with babies strapped to their backs and desperately seeking medical treatment is an all-too familiar image for Valerie.
Staying with The Canberra Times , She said : “ She has heard the stories of soldiers as young as 14 being drugged with marijuana and pushed out stoned to fight other young fit men from government forces.”
“It is heart wrenching to see. These boys, who should be at school, instead are being killed or captured and their dead bodies have hashish on them – sometimes tied to their neck and spare supplies around a leg.”
Browning runs the Afar Pastoral Development Association (APDA) which works to improve literacy, promote maternal and child health, eradicate harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation and tackle the spread of HIV and AIDS.
The conflict in Afar and Amhara has isolated people from food, knocked out water reserves and destroyed medical clinics. “We have a massive, full scale war in northern Afar affecting five districts and close to half a million people,” she noted.
“There are at least 300,000 displaced people walking for days to find food, water or medical attention.” “There are 2.5 million people in Afar put on the planet for the same reasons as you or I … and apparently it’s okay to obliterate them for the sake of power,” Browning stated.
For now, all she and her team can do is focusing their attention on those who are suffering, injured or in grave danger. She spoke by phone with Australian Associated Press while loading a truck headed to the frontline with supplies.
“As an organization/Afar Development Pastoral Association we are buying up food that we can, like dates and ground barley, and sending trucks with water containers to other areas in need,” she said.
The February 8/2022
