Humanitarian sources and the Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the northern region, said the airstrike targeted a university in the regional capital, Mekele.
Government spokesman Lejes Tulu confirmed to CNN the airstrike, but denied that it affected the university. According to Tulu, the strike targeted a communication center being used by the TPLF at a military base in Mekele.
Reuters was not able to independently confirm either account. TPLF-controlled Tigrai TV reported that 11 civilians were injured in the strike, at least the fourth day Mekele was targeted this week.
‘The whole city is in panic’
The government has intensified airstrikes on the Tigre capital as fighting escalated in the neighboring region of Amhara, where the TPLF has seized territory that the government and allied armed Amhara armed groups are trying to recover.
Residents of Daisy, a major city in Amhara, told Reuters people were fleeing, a day after a TPLF spokesman said its forces were within range of the city’s artillery.
“The whole city is in panic,” said a resident, adding to those who were leaving. He said he could hear heavy gunfire on Thursday night and early morning, and that bus fares to the capital, Addis Ababa, about 385 km (240 mi) south, had increased more than six-fold.
Atil Abuhe, communications director for the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, told Reuters that there are now more than 500,000 internally displaced people in the Amhara region.
Sid Assefa, a local official working at a coordination center for displaced people in Dessi, said 250 people fled fighting north in the Girna area this week.
“Now we have a total of 900 (displaced people) and we have exhausted our food stock three days ago.”
Dessi Hospital medical director Leul Mesfin told Reuters this week that two girls and an adult had died at his facility from artillery fire wounds in the town of Wuchle, which both the government and the TPLF have seen as the scene of heavy fighting. have seen. has been described. Last week.
Nearly a year-long clash between the government and forces affiliated with the TPLF left thousands dead and over two million displaced.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for decades as the most powerful group in a multi-ethnic coalition, but clashed with the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who took power in 2018. Abi sent central government troops who lately drove the TPLF out of Mekele. Year. Year. But forces allied to the TPLF launched a counter-offensive this year, capturing Mekele and nearly all of Tigre and swaths of Amhara.
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