PostedAugust 31, 2022, 01:26
EthiopiaDeadly air raid on the capital of rebel Tigray
Mekele, the capital of Tigray rebels in Ethiopia, was hit by airstrikes overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.
After a five-month truce, fighting resumed on August 24 in the north of the country between pro-government Ethiopian troops and Tigrayan rebels. (illustrative image)
AFP
An air raid targeted Mekele, capital of Tigray, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, several hours following the rebel authorities in this Ethiopian region announced that they wanted to continue their “counter-offensive” in the north of the country.
After a five-month truce, fighting resumed on August 24, around the southeastern tip of Tigray, between pro-Ethiopian government troops (federal army, regional forces and allied militias) and Tigrayan rebels, in conflict since November 2020 and who accuse each other of having restarted hostilities.
“Night drone raid on Mekele, no imaginable military target,” tweeted Getachew Reda, spokesman for the rebel authorities in Tigray, adding that “at least three bombs had been dropped”. Dr. Kibrom Gebreselassie, medical director of Ayder Hospital, Mekele’s main establishment, spoke on Twitter of a “drone raid in Mekele around midnight” that resulted in “victims arriving at the hospital”.
Resumption of fighting
Journalists do not have access to northern Ethiopia, making independent verification impossible. Mobile phone and internet networks in these areas are also hit or miss. The Ethiopian government’s communications service might not immediately be reached.
Earlier in the day, Getachew Reda had explained during a “press briefing” broadcast on the internet that the Tigrayan rebels, following seeing initially “defended (their) positions”, had now launched a counter-offensive beyond the borders of the Tiger. “We are waging a defensive war” and “we remain open to any negotiation”, he assured, while vowing to continue this counter-offensive to “neutralize” the military reinforcements sent by the government in northern Ethiopia. .
Asked by AFP on Tuesday, the Ethiopian government recalled its “efforts for peace and the concrete measures taken” in this direction, and said it was ” once more determined to peacefully resolve the conflict which has once once more been unleashed” by the “terrorists” of Tigray. The army withdrew Saturday from Kobo, a town in the Amhara region located regarding fifteen kilometers south of Tigray, to, according to the government, “avoid massive casualties” among civilians in the face of an attack by rebels.
traffic jams
In recent days, according to diplomatic, humanitarian and local sources, the rebels have advanced regarding fifty kilometers to the south, inside Amhara, as well as to the south-east in the Afar region. On Tuesday, the APDA, an NGO active in Afar, said it had already identified 18,000 people displaced there by the resumption of fighting and said it feared that their number would increase in the face of the advance of Afar rebels towards Amhara.
The roads “are blocked by people fleeing” the advance of the rebels, said the APDA on Twitter. According to Getachew Reda, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed “continues to make miscalculation following miscalculation by continuing to send reinforcements”: “We will continue to neutralize them, which will probably lead us more and more inside the Amhara region”.
“We are not particularly interested in controlling this area but, as long as the forces unleashed once morest us continue to threaten the security of our people, we will continue to take appropriate measures to neutralize them” and “that will determine where we will stop. “, he threatened.
(AFP)