Four children have been killed in an explosion in southern Djibouti, which authorities said was suspected to have been caused by a drone, the Addis Standard reported, citing AFP.
Djibouti’s Attorney General, Hassan Mohamed Hassan, said in a statement that the explosion took place in the Dikhil region of the Afar region. He described the incident as a “tragic tragedy” and that an investigation team had been sent to determine the exact cause of the explosion.
The Djibouti Human Rights Association said in a statement that two children, aged six and seven, a girl and a boy, died on the spot, while two others died of their injuries after not receiving immediate medical attention.
The association said the children were guarding their livestock at the time of the incident. It was also confirmed that six other children were injured, one of them seriously.
The Djibouti Human Rights Watch said this was the sixth drone attack in the region in six months, and that the attacks had targeted nomadic communities.
The incident follows an earlier incident in February last year when authorities said they had carried out a drone strike near the Ethiopian border, killing eight members of a rebel group and an unspecified number of civilians.
The Djiboutian government has not said who carried out the drone attack.
