Rebellious Tigrayan forces said on Saturday they had seized the strategic town of Dessie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region where tens of thousands of ethnic Amharas have sought refuge from an escalation in fighting. The fighters pushed Ethiopian government forces from Dessie and were headed towards the town of Kombolcha, Getachew …
Read More »Ethiopia air strike on Tigray kills 6: Sources
Ethiopia’s military on Thursday carried out an airstrike on the capital of the war-torn Tigray region that a hospital official and rebel sources said killed six people and injured 21 others. The government said the strike, the latest in a campaign of air bombardments, hit a factory in Mekele used …
Read More »Ethiopia conducts two air strikes in Tigray targeting rebel forces
Ethiopia conducted two airstrikes in Tigray on Sunday as the government intensifies a nearly week-old campaign of aerial bombardment against the rebellious forces who control most of the region. One strike hit the western Tigray area of Mai Tsebri, targeting a training site of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), …
Read More »Ethiopia fighting intensifies amid air strikes on Tigray and clashes in Amhara
An Ethiopian government air strike hit a university in the Tigray regional capital on Friday, rebellious Tigrayan forces and humanitarian sources said, as thousands of people fled fighting further south. The government said its strike targeted a base formerly belonging to the military and now being used by the Tigray …
Read More »Air strike hits capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray for third time this week
Ethiopian government airstrikes hit the capital of the northern Tigray region on Wednesday, the third such attack this week in a stepped-up campaign to weaken rebellious Tigrayan forces in an almost one-year-old war. Tigrai Television, controlled by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said the attack targeted the center of …
Read More »Tigray forces say air strikes hit Ethiopia’s Mekelle, government denies
Rebellious Tigrayan forces accused the Ethiopian government of launching airstrikes on the capital of the Tigray region on Monday, though the government denied the reports. The reported attack follows intensified fighting in two other Ethiopian regions, where the central government’s military is trying to recover territory taken by the northern …
Read More »‘God have mercy’: Tigray residents describe life under siege
As food and the means to buy it dwindled in a city under siege, the young mother felt she could do no more. She killed herself, unable to feed her children. In a Catholic church across town, flour and oil to make communion wafers will soon run out. And the …
Read More »Top official in Ethiopia’s Tigray interim government seeks asylum abroad
A top official in the interim administration of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region told AFP on Saturday he had fled the country and was seeking asylum, citing fears for his safety. Gebremeskel Kassa served as chief of staff of the administration appointed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after the Nobel peace …
Read More »Ethiopia’s parliament confirmed incumbent Abiy Ahmed as prime minister for a five-year term on Monday, cementing his power domestically amid mounting international concern about his government’s handling of the conflict in northern Ethiopia. Abiy’s party won a landslide victory in June’s election. He was sworn in on Monday, and a …
Read More »Ethiopia says Tigrayan forces beaten in Afar region, Tigrayans say they redeployed
Ethiopia said on Thursday that rebellious forces from the Tigray region had been defeated in the adjacent Afar region and had withdrawn, but the Tigrayan forces said they had merely shifted troops to neighboring Amhara for an offensive there. “The TPLF force has left Afar (region),” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dina …
Read More »125 villagers massacred in Ethiopia’s Amhara: doctors
At least 125 villagers were massacred in Ethiopia’s Amhara region earlier this month, doctors and local officials told AFP Wednesday, but rebels from neighbouring Tigray rejected claims they were responsible. It was the latest reported mass killing in the 10-month conflict in northern Ethiopia between government forces and Tigray rebels …
Read More »Ethiopia says more than 150 aid trucks enter war-hit Tigray over past two days
Ethiopia said on Saturday that more than 150 aid trucks had entered war-torn Tigray over the past two days after the United Nations warned of a “looming catastrophe” in the northern region. A senior UN official said this week that a “de facto aid blockade” was exacerbating the humanitarian crisis …
Read More »Ethiopia rights commission says 150 killed in attack in Oromiya
Gunmen killed at least 150 people last week in western Ethiopia, the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said on Thursday, in what it described as an attack by an armed group on civilians. The commission said that residents of the Gida Kiremu district in the Eastern Wollega zone told its …
Read More »U.S. blacklists Eritrean official over human rights abuse in Ethiopia’s Tigray
The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on an Eritrean official who is accused of being engaged in serious human rights abuse in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, as Washington warned it would continue to target those involved in prolonging the conflict. The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement …
Read More »France suspends military cooperation with Ethiopia as Tigray conflict intensifies
France has suspended a deal on military cooperation with Ethiopia, two sources close to the issue said on Friday, as concern intensifies over the conflict in the country’s north. The deal agreed between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Emmanuel Macron in March 2019 was suspended at the beginning of …
Read More »Ethiopia’s Tigray forces seek new military alliance with insurgents from Oromiya
Forces from Ethiopia’s rebellious Tigray region said on Wednesday they were in talks to forge a military alliance with insurgents from Ethiopia’s most populous region, Oromiya, heaping pressure on the central government in Addis Ababa. The move could signal an escalation in the country’s nine-month old war and comes a …
Read More »Ethiopia urges citizens to join armed forces as conflict spreads
Ethiopia’s government on Tuesday urged citizens to join the fight against resurgent Tigrayan forces now pushing beyond their own region in a nine-month-old war that has sparked a major refugee crisis. The call to arms came in a statement from the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed: “Now is the …
Read More »At river where Tigrayan bodies floated, fears of ‘many more’
From time to time, a body floating down the river separating Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region from Sudan was a silent reminder of a war conducted in the shadows. But in recent days, the corpses became a flow. Bloated, drained of color from their journey, the bodies were often mutilated: genitals …
Read More »Residents say Tigray rebels take control of UNESCO site Lalibela
The development indicates rebels continuing a weeks-long push beyond Tigray that has, according to Ethiopian officials, displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians. Rebels from Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region have seized Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the neighbouring Amhara region famed for its 12th-century rock-hewn churches, residents told the …
Read More »UN condemns ‘dangerous’ claims of bias against aid workers in Tigray
Martin Griffiths, during visit to Ethiopia, says ‘blanket’ accusations are ‘unfair’ and ‘need to stop’. The United Nations’ new humanitarian chief has denounced “dangerous” accusations by Ethiopian government officials that aid workers were biased in favour of rebels in Tigray, where a brutal conflict between federal troops and forces loyal …
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