Ethiopian military says it’s responsible for deadly Tigray airstrike
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s military on Thursday said it was responsible for a deadly airstrike on a busy marketplace in the country’s Tigray region. Health workers said the attack killed at least 64 people, including children, but the military insisted only combatants were targeted.
A military spokesman, Col. Getnet Adane, said fighters supporting the Tigray region’s former leaders had assembled to celebrate Martyrs’ Day when the airstrike occurred.
“The Ethiopian air force uses the latest technology, so it conducted a precision strike that was successful,” he said.
But a doctor who reached the scene said “most of the patients we found were mothers, children and elderly fathers.”
The airstrike wounded over 100 people, half of them seriously, a regional health official said. Health workers said Ethiopian forces blocked medical teams from responding and shot at a Red Cross ambulance trying to reach the scene.
On Thursday, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that the U.N. still hasn’t been able to reach the scene. “Between the fighting and different groups on the ground we need clearance to go and we’ve just not been able to get it,” he said.
The airstrike, one of the worst massacres of the war, came amid some of the fiercest fighting in Tigray since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces, supported by neighboring Eritrea, pursue Tigray’s former leaders.
The United States and the European Union have condemned the airstrike in Togoga.
A “reprehensible act,” the U.S. State Department said. “Denying victims urgently needed medical care is heinous and absolutely unacceptable.”
The U.S. also called for an immediate cease-fire in Tigray.
McAfee autopsy ordered: Authorities in Spain say a judge has ordered an autopsy for John McAfee, the gun-loving antivirus pioneer, cryptocurrency promoter and occasional politician who died in a prison cell pending extradition to the United States for allegedly evading millions in unpaid taxes.
A court spokeswoman for the Catalonia region said Thursday that a forensic team would need to perform toxicology tests on McAfee’s body to determine the cause of death and that results could take “days or weeks.”
Authorities say everything at the scene indicated the 75-year-old tycoon killed himself.
McAfee’s Spanish lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the entrepreneur’s death had come as a surprise to his wife and other relatives.
Policing bill: Congressional bargainers said Thursday they’ve agreed to a bipartisan framework for overhauling policing procedures, producing an upbeat but barebones statement that provided no details, conceded that disagreements remained and left uncertain their prospects for crafting a compromise that has eluded them for a year.
Negotiators released three sentences around dinner time Thursday as the Senate left town for a two-week recess. It came 13 months after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis.
“After months of working in good faith, we have
reached an agreement on a framework addressing the major issues for bipartisan police reform,” the statement read. “There is still more work to be done on the final bill, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. Over the next few weeks we look forward to continuing our work toward getting a finalized proposal across the finish line.”
Aides of both parties said they could provide no detail about what exactly was in the framework.
Israel eases blockade again:
Israel announced a further easing of its blockade on Gaza on Thursday, saying it would expand the coastal territory’s fishing zone and allow import of raw materials for “essential civilian factories.”
COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees civilian affairs in Gaza, said the measures would take effect on Friday and are “conditional upon the preservation of security stability.” It said the fishing zone would be expanded from 6 nautical miles to 9 nautical miles.
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in the strip in 2007. Israel says the restrictions are needed to prevent Hamas from importing military resources, while critics of the blockade view it as collective punishment of the territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.
Hamas has demanded significant easing of the blockade in negotiations with mediators aimed at solidifying the informal cease-fire that ended last month’s 11-day Gaza war.
Israel lifted other restrictions earlier this week, allowing 11 truckloads of clothes to be exported and resuming mail service, according to Palestinian officials.
Russia issues warning: Russia is prepared to target intruding warships if they fail to heed warnings, a senior Russian diplomat declared Thursday after a Black Sea incident in which a British destroyer sailed near Crimea in an area that Russia claims as its territorial waters.
Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender on Wednesday to drive it away from waters near the Crimean city of Sevastopol. Britain denied that account, insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon and said it was sailing in Ukrainian waters.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday that “the inviolability of the Russian borders is an absolute imperative,” adding that it will be protected “by all means, diplomatic, political and military, if needed.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov deplored what he described as a “deliberate and well-prepared provocation” by Britain.
Reparations fund: A Massachusetts town has created a fund to pay reparations to Black residents as communities and institutions across the country look to atone for slavery, discrimination and past wrongs amid the nation’s ongoing racial reckoning.
The Amherst Town Council on Monday voted 12-1 in favor of establishing the fund and requiring a two-thirds vote of the council to authorize any spending from it, The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.
Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman said approval means the town can begin accepting contributions for reparation work and decide on a financial plan going forward. Bockelman and other town officials have suggested designating more than $200,000 in surplus budget funds as an initial seed investment.