ADDIS ABABA: Only combatants, not civilians, were struck in an air strike this week in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the country’s military spokesman said on Thursday.
Col. Getnet Adane told Reuters in an interview in Addis Ababa that the combatants in the town of Togoga were dressed in civilian clothes.
An air strike killed at least 43 people in the town on Tuesday, a medical official told Reuters. The strike took place after residents said new fighting had flared in recent days north of the regional capital Mekelle.
A resident of the town told Reuters on Wednesday that the air strike a day earlier had hit a market in the town west of Mekelle at around 1 p.m. That resident also said that her 2-year-old daughter had been injured in the attack.
The military spokesman said the combatants were not inside the market, but had gathered in the town to commemorate the anniversary of the bombing of another town in Tigray, Hawzen, in 1988. That attack, by Ethiopia’s then-ruling Communist leaders, killed hundreds of people and is widely commemorated in Tigray.
The spokesman said he did not have the death toll from the strike but that it would come soon.
The military has been battling forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former ruling party, since November. Fighting has displaced 2 million people, and the United Nations has warned of a possible famine.
Asked about children injured in Tuesday’s attack, the spokesman said the TPLF uses propaganda and is known for faking injuries. He also said that doctors quoted by the media are not “real doctors.”
The remarks were the first acknowledgement by the military of the air strike, which came after residents said new fighting had flared in recent days north of Tigray’s regional capital Mekelle.
Previously, Getnet, the military spokesman, had declined to confirm or deny the incident, saying air strikes were a common military tactic and that government forces do not target civilians.
The air strike took place as Ethiopian officials counted ballots from national and regional parliamentary elections held this week in seven of the nation’s 10 regions.
No voting was held in Tigray, and security concerns and problems with ballot papers also delayed voting in two other regions.
Ethiopian military says only combatants hit in Tigray air strike
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Ethiopian military says only combatants hit in Tigray air strike
- An air strike killed at least 43 people in the town on Tuesday, a medical official told Reuters
26 Doctors without Borders workers remain unaccounted for in South Sudan a month after attacks
- A hospital in the town of Lankien was bombed by government forces, MSF said
- “We have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity”
NAIROBI: More than two dozen Doctors Without Borders workers remain unaccounted for a month after attacks in South Sudan, the medical charity said.
Two facilities belonging to the group, known by French acronym MSF, were attacked on Feb. 3 in Jonglei State, northeast of the capital, Juba, where violence has displaced an estimated 280,000 people since December.
A hospital in the town of Lankien was bombed by government forces, MSF said, while another medical facility in the town of Pieri was raided by “unknown assailants.” Both were located in opposition-held areas.
Staff working at the two facilities fled alongside much of the local population into deeply rural areas where armed clashes and aerial bombardments were ongoing.
MSF said in a statement on Monday that “26 of 291 of our colleagues working in Lankien and Pieri remain unaccounted for.
“We have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity,” it said.
The lack of communication with its staff could be linked to the limited network connectivity in much of the state. Staff members who had been contacted described “destruction, violence and extreme hardships.”
Fighting escalated sharply in December, when opposition forces captured a string of government outposts in north central Jonglei. In January, the government responded with a counteroffensive that recaptured most of the area it had lost.
Displaced people in Akobo, an opposition-held town near the Ethiopian border, described horrific violence by government fighters. Many described not being able to find food or water as they walked for days to reach safety.
The attacks on MSF facilities in Lankien and Pieri are part of an uptick in violence on humanitarian staff, supplies and infrastructure, aid groups say. MSF facilities have been attacked 10 times in the last 12 months.
“This violence has taken an unbearable toll not only on health care services, but on the very people who kept them running,” said Yashovardhan, MSF head of mission in South Sudan, who only uses one name.
“Medical workers must never be targets,” he said. “We are deeply concerned about what has happened to our colleagues and the communities we serve.”
