Nairobi, Sept 14 (AFP/APP): Ten people were killed in a second day of air strikes on Ethiopia’s Tigray region Wednesday, hospital officials said, in attacks that came after authorities there expressed readiness for a ceasefire.
Twin drone attacks hit a neighbourhood in Tigray’s capital Mekele at around 7:30 am (0430 GMT), killing 10 and injuring more than a dozen others, two officials from the biggest hospital in the war-torn region said.
The air raids follow an announcement by Tigrayan authorities on Sunday that they were ready for talks led by the African Union (AU) to end almost two years of brutal warfare in northern Ethiopia.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government is still yet to officially comment on the overture, as the international community presses the warring sides to seize the opportunity for peace.
“Death toll raised to 10,” Kibrom Gebreselassie, a senior official at Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, told AFP via text message. In a later statement, he said 14 people were injured.
Fasika Amdeslasie, a surgeon at the same hospital, confirmed the death toll, adding that the first bombing injured two women followed by a second strike “on the people gathered to help and see the victims”.
“Among the victims, a father was dead and his son is taken to surgery”, he said on Twitter.
AFP was not able to independently verify the claims. Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for over a year.
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