Military air strikes pound capital of Tigray territory

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian military air strikes have hit the capital of the country’s Tigray region and killed at least three people, witnesses said Monday, returning the fighting abruptly to Mekele after several months of peace.

The air strikes came days after a new military offensive was opened against the Tigray forces who have been fighting Ethiopian and allied forces for nearly a year.

The state-owned Ethiopian Press Agency, citing the air force, reported that “communication towers and equipment” were attacked and that “utmost care was made to avoid civilian casualties.”

Mekele hasn’t seen fighting since late June, when the Tigray forces retook much of the region and Ethiopian troops withdrew. Since then, Ethiopia’s federal government has called all able citizens to crush the Tigray fighters who dominated the national government for 27 years before being sidelined by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. What began as a political dispute in Africa’s second-most populous country has now killed thousands.

One Mekele resident, Kindeya Gebrehiwot, told the Associated Press that a bustling market was bombed. Kindeya, a spokesman for the Tigray authorities, asserted that many people were wounded. Another resident, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the first strike occurred just outside the city and three children from the same family were killed. The resident said at least seven people were wounded in the second strike, which badly damaged a hotel.

The Tigray forces have said they are trying to pressure Ethiopia’s government to lift a deadly blockade imposed on the Tigray region since the dramatic turn in the war in June. But witnesses in the Amhara region have alleged door-to-door killings and other atrocities against civilians by the Tigray fighters — an echo of the atrocities that Tigrayans reported at the hands of Ethiopian forces earlier in the war.