Tigray forces fire rockets into neighboring region of Ethiopia
Tigray forces fired rockets at a neighbouring state on Friday, heightening fears the internal conflict could spread to other parts of the country, a day after Ethiopia said its forces were closing in on the dissident region’s capital Mekele.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, unleashed a military campaign in the Tigray region on November 4 with the declared aim of unseating its ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which he accuses of defying his government and seeking to destabilise it.
Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed in the conflict in Africa’s second most populous country, while tens of thousands have fled fighting and air strikes in Tigray, crossing to neighbouring Sudan.
Abiy this week insisted the military operation was in its final phase. Redwan Hussein, spokesman for an Ethiopian crisis committee handling the conflict, said that “our defence forces are moving forward and closing in on Mekele.”
An official in Ethiopia’s Amhara state said TPLF forces fired rockets at the regional capital, Bahir Dar, early Friday morning.
Last week, the TPLF also fired rockets at Asmara, the capital of neighbouring Eritrea which it accuses of backing the Ethiopian advance. Both Eritrea and Ethiopia deny the allegation.
Amhara communications official, Gizachew Muluneh, said the three TPLF rockets had all missed their targets, resulting in neither casualties nor damage with two rockets striking near the airport and a third hitting a maize field.
“My suspicion is they were targeting the Amhara Mass Media Agency, the airport and a telecommunications tower that is nearby,” Gizachew said.
The TPLF on Friday accused government forces of an attack on the university in Mekele injuring an unspecified number of students. There was no immediate response from the government in Addis Ababa, which insists all air strikes are aimed at military targets.
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