More than 50 people, including several children, were killed after an airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray region hit a busy market on Tuesday, as per eyewitnesses. The strike comes amid an ongoing brutal civil war in Tigray between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) militants and Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that more than 100 people were injured in the airstrike. The wounded patients treated at the Ayder hospital in the Tigrayan capital Mekele said a plane had dropped a bomb in a marketplace in Togoga town. An international aid group worker told the agency that the strike was “horrific” and people had no idea “if the jets were coming from Ethiopia or Eritrea.”
The AP reported that Ethiopian soldiers turned back a convoy of ambulances sent to evacuate the injured. In another incident, an ambulance carrying a wounded baby to the hospital was blocked for two hours, resulting in the baby’s death.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said, on Wednesday, that it had facilitated “the medical evacuation of wounded people from Togoga village […] in coordination with all relevant parties.” The ICRC added that the wounded were transported by Ethiopian Red Cross Society ambulances to Ayder Referral hospital in Mekele. “We cannot stress enough how vital it is for the medical mission to be respected and protected at all times,” ICRC Addis Ababa chief Nicolas Von Arx said in response to reports suggesting that government troops prevented medical workers from doing their jobs.
The Ethiopian military spokesperson Colonel Getnet Adane told Reuters that only combatants and no civilians casualties were reported in the airstrike. Adane said the militants were dressed in civilian clothes and blamed the TPLF rebels for using propaganda and faking injuries to promote their narrative.
Reacting to the airstrike, the United States (US) State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the US was “gravely concerned” over the loss of life resulting from the bombing. “We strongly condemn this reprehensible act,” Price added. He also called the denial of medical aid to victims “heinous and absolutely unacceptable” and urged “Ethiopian authorities to ensure full and unhindered medical access to the victims immediately.”
The European Union (EU) also issued a statement condemning the incident. “The EU strongly condemns the deliberate targeting of civilians. It is not justifiable in any terms and goes against International Humanitarian Law. Those atrocities cannot be justified by using the preservation of the territorial integrity of Ethiopia as an argument,” the statement read, adding, “We reiterate the urgent call for an immediate ceasefire in Tigray and unrestricted humanitarian access to all those affected by the conflict in the region.”
Ethiopia has been in the middle of a severe humanitarian and political crisis since November last year, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military response to an attack on a federal army camp in Tigray by the TPLF, declared as a “terrorist” organisation. The fighting quickly boiled over into a full-scale armed invasion by Ethiopian troops, who partnered with Eritrean soldiers in their operation. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have also been accused of committing widespread atrocities against civilians, including massacres and using rape as a weapon of war.
Airstrike Leaves Over 50 Dead in Tigray
The strike comes amid an ongoing brutal civil war in Tigray between the TPLF militants and Ethiopia and Eritrea.
June 24, 2021
An injured victim of an airstrike on a village arrives in an ambulance at a hospital in Tigray, Wednesday, June 23, 2021 SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS