Hundreds killed in escalating Ethiopian conflict, sources say

DANSHA: An escalating conflict in Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region has killed hundreds of people, sources on the government’s side said, even as the prime minister sought on Monday to reassure the world his nation was not sliding into civil war. The flare-up in the northern area bordering Eritrea and Sudan threatens to destabilise Africa’s second most populous nation where ethnic conflict has already killed hundreds since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took over in 2018. A military official in Amhara, on the side of the federal troops, told Reuters that clashes with Tigrayan forces in Kirakir, near the Tigray-Amhara border, had killed nearly 500 Tigrayan forces. Three security sources in Amhara working with the federal troops said the Ethiopian army had also lost hundreds in the original battle in Dansha. Reuters has been unable to verify numbers, though a diplomat also said hundreds were believed to have died. The prime minister’s office and Ethiopia’s national army did not immediately respond to requests for comment.