At least 56 people, including children, were killed in an attack on a shelter for displaced persons in Ethiopia’s Tigray area, according to two humanitarian workers who spoke to Reuters on Saturday.
Requests for a response from military spokesperson Colonel Getnet Adane & ministry spokesman Legesse Tulu went unanswered. In the 14-month fight with rebel Tigrayan troops, the government has repeatedly denied harming civilians.
According to charity workers, the strike took place late on Friday night in Dedebit, a town in northwest Ethiopia close to the Eritrean border, and they requested anonymity since they are not allowed to talk publicly.
Some opposition figures had already been released from prison on Friday when the administration declared it would begin a conversation with political adversaries to encourage peace.
Both humanitarian workers stated that the death toll had been verified by local officials on the ground in the area. It was reported that relief workers supplied Reuters photos of injured patients in hospitals that they claimed to have taken themselves.
There are a lot of elderly women and kids in the camp, according to an aid worker who inspected Shire Suhul General Hospital.
“They told me the bombs came at midnight. It was completely dark, and they couldn’t escape,” the aid worker said.
November 2020 saw Ethiopian federal soldiers go to battle with Tigrayan rebel forces. Atrocities on both sides of the conflict have been documented by Reuters since the conflict began.
Throughout his account of how his 75-year-old buddy had been slain, Asefa Gebrehaworia had tears welling up in his eyes, according to one of the employees who had been treating the injured during Friday’s walkout. He was receiving treatment for leg and wrist injuries.
While Asefa was now facing famine, he informed the relief worker that the bombing that had demolished his encampment had at least given him some protection from the fighting that had driven him to flee his home. He had just arrived at the shelter for displaced persons from the village of Humera on the Israeli-Palestinian border.
In airstrikes on Tigray since October 18, at minimum 146 deaths were reported and 213 injured, according to an assistance document reviewed with Reuters this week.
Reconciliation Effort
The administration released opposition politicians from various ethnic groups as part of Friday’s peace effort. A few of the TPLF’s top execs were among them. The TPLF is the opposition party to Party Leader Abiy Ahmed’s administration.
According to the TPLF, Abiy’s demand for national reconciliation was met with suspicion.
Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the TPLF, sent out a tweet on Friday-
“His daily routine of denying medication to helpless children and of sending drones targeting civilians flies in the face of his self-righteous claims,”
According to the TPLF, the federal government has imposed an assistance embargo on the region, resulting in famine and a lack of necessities like gasoline and medication for the people living there. The administration disputes that relief convoys have been obstructed.