Tigray’s Children Under Siege: First Education Was Denied, Now Its Schools Are Being Destroyed

 

From prolonged school closures and financial obstruction to drone strikes by the genocidal Ethiopian regime against classrooms, Tigray’s education crisis exposes a devastating assault on children’s rights, girls’ futures, and an entire generation’s chance to recover.

A school does not have to be bombed to be destroyed. It can be destroyed by withholding the funds needed to keep it open, by denying teachers their salaries, by depriving students of books and learning materials, or by allowing children to spend years outside the classroom. And when schools finally struggle to reopen, destruction becomes even more devastating if the buildings themselves are struck from the air.

This is the unfolding education crisis in Tigray.

The drone strikes against educational infrastructure in 2026 is not an isolated tragedy. It comes after years of educational devastation caused by the genocidal war, widespread destruction of schools, prolonged displacement, and continuing barriers to reopening and sustaining educational services. The suspension of regional funding in October 2025, followed by further functional blockade and school closures, has compounded an already catastrophic situation.

The pattern demands urgent international scrutiny: Tigray’s children have endured years without adequate access to education, and now the institutions needed to restore that lost future are coming under attack.

Education Was Already in Crisis Before the Latest Strikes

The scale of educational deprivation in Tigray is staggering.

According to research published by the Education and Development Forum in June 2026, the genocidal war and its aftermath devastated the region’s education system. Although schools began reopening in 2023 after years of closure, functional blockade continued to threaten educational recovery. By June 2026, the researchers estimated that 2.4 million children in Tigray were unable to access their right to education.

This was not simply a problem of rebuilding damaged classrooms. Schools needed teachers, functioning facilities, teaching materials, reliable funding, and the institutional capacity to bring millions of children back into learning.

In October 2025, the federal government again suspended payment of Tigray’s regional budget, according to a 2026 peer-reviewed study on post-war education reconstruction published in Compare. The researchers reported that the suspension threatened the closure of schools across the region. Their analysis also cited regional education data indicating that only about 54% of young people were accessing schooling in 2025.

These findings reveal a critical dimension of the crisis: education cannot recover when the financial and institutional foundations required to sustain it remain under threat.

The suspension of funding and its consequences require serious scrutiny. Regional education authorities cannot sustain schools without adequate resources, and children should not bear the cost.

The European Union’s humanitarian response in Tigray had already documented the scale of the crisis in January 2025. Approximately 2.4 million school-aged children had been denied education for three academic years, while 88% of school infrastructure had been damaged. The consequences included heightened child-protection risks and disproportionate harm to girls in poor and displaced communities.

Years later, the educational emergency remains unresolved.

From Financial Obstruction to Physical Destruction

The drone attacks by the genocidal Ethiopian government in 2026 have added another layer of devastation to an education system struggling to recover.

On August 27, 2026, the Tigray Education Bureau publicly described what it called a pattern of drone destruction targeting schools, teachers, and educational facilities. The account was reported by Addis Standard, republished by allAfrica.

According to the bureau, a January 2026 airstrike destroyed four classrooms and student drinking-water facilities at Zalaqme Primary School in Kola Tembien, preventing 432 enrolled students from returning to school. On August 10, a drone strike damaged classrooms and educational equipment at Merewa General Secondary School in Raya Alamata, affecting more than 800 students.

On August 20, an airstrike struck teachers’ residential housing in Mekelle’s Hawelti area, injuring more than 14 teachers and family members and destroying homes built through loans.

The attack on teachers’ housing is particularly disturbing. Teachers are indispensable to educational recovery. Destroying their homes threatens their personal safety, undermines their ability to work, and adds financial hardship to a profession already essential to rebuilding a devastated society.

The same week, the bureau reported that a drone strike on August 26 destroyed classrooms and 35 computers at Gejet General Secondary School in Saharty Woreda. The school served approximately 500 students. Another strike subsequently destroyed the Early Childhood Development Center at Abraha Weatsbaha Primary School.

On September 25, Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into an August 20 airstrike in Mekelle, reporting that 13 civilians, including seven children, were wounded in an apparent Ethiopian government airstrike on a residential compound. Human Rights Watch said the attack should be investigated as a possible war crime.

In September, further drone strikes attacked schools and a hospital in Alamata. By October, educational infrastructure continued to face danger amid renewed fighting.

On October 11, a secondary school in Ahsea district, northern Tigray, was struck by drones three times in succession, leaving the building almost completely destroyed. Civilian casualties were also reported.

Girls Are Paying a Particularly Heavy Price

The consequences of this crisis are profoundly gendered. For girls, school is not simply a place to learn mathematics, science, languages, and history. It also provides safety, social connection, trusted adult support, and a route toward economic independence.

When education is interrupted, girls face increased risks of early and forced marriage, gender-based violence, exploitation, early pregnancy, and permanent exclusion from learning and employment.

These are not abstract possibilities. The European Commission’s humanitarian reporting on education in Tigray has highlighted the heightened risks facing girls in poor households and displaced communities, including child marriage and early pregnancy. It has also documented how inadequate school sanitation and facilities can create additional barriers for adolescent girls returning to education.

Financial obstruction and attacks on schools create these vulnerabilities. When a school ceases to operate, girls lose access to its protective environment. When a school is destroyed, the journey back to education becomes even harder. When families are displaced or impoverished, girls are pushed toward responsibilities and circumstances that end their education permanently.

The consequences extend across generations. A girl denied education today may face reduced opportunities for employment, financial independence, leadership, and participation in public life tomorrow. The damage also affects the future of her family and community.

Denying girls education does not merely interrupt their childhood. It narrows the possibilities of their entire lives.

The Destruction of Education Threatens Tigray’s Future

Tigray cannot rebuild its economy, restore its institutions, or recover from mass displacement without an education system capable of preparing a new generation of skilled professionals, teachers, health workers, researchers, and community leaders.

The destruction of schools and digital learning facilities undermines precisely the capacity required for recovery.

Financial resources are needed to pay teachers, repair classrooms, replace computers, restore water and sanitation, provide learning materials, and support children whose education has been interrupted. Repeated destruction increases the cost of reconstruction while depriving students of the time they cannot recover.

The consequences last decades.

Children who spend years outside school face greater difficulties catching up academically. Students lose opportunities to prepare for examinations and enter higher education. Teachers leave the profession or struggle to work under unsafe conditions. Families lose confidence that education can provide a path to a better future.

The 2026 research on restoring the right to education in Tigray emphasizes the importance of rebuilding educational provision through locally informed research, regional institutions, and effective planning. Such efforts cannot succeed without sustained funding, functioning institutions, and security for students and educators.

The question is therefore not simply how many schools can be rebuilt. It is whether Tigray’s children will be allowed to learn in an environment where schools can open, teachers can work, and educational investments can endure.

International Silence

The international community must confront the full scale of this emergency: years of educational deprivation, functional blockade that threaten school operations, and drone attacks on educational infrastructure.

The Safe Schools Declaration establishes an international framework for protecting education during armed conflict. Its principles should guide efforts to prevent attacks on educational facilities, and preserve the continuity of learning.

International humanitarian law also requires parties to distinguish civilians and civilian objects from military objectives and to take the precautions required by law. Reports of attacks on schools and civilian infrastructure must be investigated independently, and credible evidence of unlawful conduct must lead to appropriate accountability.

Four actions are urgently needed. All parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and protect students, teachers, educational facilities, and civilian shelters. Secondly, donors must support the rebuilding of classrooms, ICT centers, early childhood facilities, and university infrastructure, while providing learning materials, teacher support, and safe educational spaces for girls . Reconstruction without protection is insufficient. Protection without adequate funding is also insufficient. Tigray needs both.

A Generation Cannot Wait Any Longer

Tigray’s education crisis is a story of cumulative deprivation. Children endured years of school closures during the previous genocidal war. Their return to education has been obstructed by deliberately destroyed infrastructure, and functional blockade. Now, reports of drone strikes against schools and educational facilities threaten to deepen the catastrophe.

These are not separate problems. They compound one another.

A child who has already lost years of schooling cannot afford another year without a classroom. A girl who has survived displacement should not have to choose between her safety and her education. A teacher who has struggled to return to the classroom should not have to fear losing a home or workplace to an airstrike.

The right to education is not a privilege that governments may suspend. It is a fundamental human right, recognized in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms everyone’s right to education.

The international community must stop treating the destruction of education as a secondary consequence of war. When schools are deprived of the resources to operate, children are denied learning. When schools are destroyed, that denial becomes even more devastating. When girls bear a disproportionate burden, the crisis becomes a direct threat to gender equality and future generations.

Protect the schools. Fund the classrooms. Safeguard the teachers. Restore the right to learn. And ensure that the children of Tigray are not condemned to inherit a future defined by the education they were denied.