Drone kills dozens in IDP camp
ADDIS ABABA: Tigrayan rebels claimed on Saturday that dozens of people had been killed in a drone strike on a camp for civilians displaced by the brutal war in northern Ethiopia.
Reports of the attack emerged just a day after the government declared surprise pardons for a number of detained opposition leaders, including senior Tigrayan figures, in what it said was a move to foster national reconciliation.
The amnesty has been welcomed by the international community as a possible way out of 14 months of brutal fighting between forces loyal to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Friday’s announcement followed a dramatic shift on the battlefield, with the rebels retreating to their Tigray stronghold at the end of December in the face of a military offensive that saw government forces retake a string of strategic towns.
Although there appeared to be a lull in fighting since, the rebels have accused the government of continuing to conduct deadly drone attacks on Tigray.
TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Twitter that an attack on the camp in the northwestern town of Dedebit “has claimed the lives of 56 innocent civilians so far”.
His claim could not be independently verified, with access to Tigray restricted and the region under communications blackout, and there was no immediate response to requests for comment from Ethiopian government officials.
However, a senior official at the main hospital in Tigray’s capital Mekelle said that the hospital in the town of Shire where the victims were taken had reported 55 people dead and 126 injured.
The EU also briefly referred to the air strike in a statement on Saturday, saying it had killed and wounded many civilians.
Earlier this week the United Nations said three Eritrean refugees including two children had been killed in an air strike on Wednesday on a refugee camp in Tigray.
The conflict in Africa’s second most populous country has killed thousands of people and created a deep humanitarian crisis in the north, with fears it could tear apart a country where ethnic tensions are never far from the surface.
Tigray itself is under what the UN calls a de facto blockade that is preventing life-saving food and medicine from reaching its six million people, including hundreds of thousands suffering famine-like conditions.
While Friday’s amnesty statement also spoke of national dialogue, it did not say if Mr Abiy was considering any negotiations with the TPLF, the party that dominated politics for three decades until he took power in 2018 but is now considered a terrorist group by Addis Ababa.