NAIROBI, May 4 (Reuters) - Conflict in Ethiopia's Tigrayregion has separated nearly 5,000 children from their parents,Save the Children said on Tuesday.
Many children now live in crowded conditions, often sleepingin rooms with dozens of unrelated adults, leaving themvulnerable to abuse, Save the Children said.
Fighting between the federal government and forces in thenorthern region broke out in November and is believed to havekilled thousands and displaced more than a million people.
Save the Children's account was borne out by one young girl,who told Reuters how she had come home to find both her parentsgone.
Freweyni, a seven-year-old from the town of Mai Kadra, losttrack of her parents and her siblings when ethnic killingsbegan. Reuters is withholding her last name for privacy reasons.
"Our neighbours came and said 'Run, people may kill you,'"she told Reuters in March at a school sheltering displacedfamilies in the regional capital Mekelle.
Her father stayed with her sick grandmother but told her torun. When she returned home, neither her parents nor hergrandmother were there; she hasn't seen them since, she said.
Freweyni, now cared for by a neighbour, was one of 45separated children sheltering in the Kasinet High School, wherepeople cram into crowded classrooms or camp under trees.
Many said they ate only one meal a day because there's notenough aid. The humanitarian response has been hampered bycontinued fighting in some areas, the United Nations says.
The government has said it has supplied 70% of the food aidsent so far and is racing to rebuild infrastructure.
Communications are still a challenge: phone lines in someareas have been down since the conflict began; even major townssuch as Shire, home to tens of thousands of displaced families,can have their road and phone connections disrupted for weeks.
"Protection systems that would normally support separatedchildren have been almost totally disrupted due to theconflict," said Magdalena Rossman, protection advisor for Savethe Children.
One 11-year-old girl and her little brother lost theirfamily in fighting, but managed to reunite with their23-year-old brother, Save the Children said. He had fled toSudan but came back searching for them. Their parents are stillalive but unable to reach the children.
"When the war started, everything went bad," the 11-year-oldsaid. "There was always the sound of guns and armed men."
"I want to be with my parents again. I still feel afraid."
(Reporting by Ayenat Mersie and Katharine Houreld; Editing byGiles Elgood) ((ayenat.mersie@thomsonreuters.com;))
