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A30 world news
Diahuebs 21 OctOber 2021

New airstrikes hit capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region

hit Agbe between the com- siege, where doctors and oth- main in Tigray, he said.
munities of Hagere Selam ers have described running
and Tembien, he said, de- out of medicines and other The AP in recent weeks has
scribing the site as a “center basic needs. confirmed the first starvation
of military training and heavy deaths in Tigray under the
artillery depot.” Despite pleas from the U.N. government blockade.
and others to allow basic ser-
A Tigray spokesman denied vices and humanitarian aid Humanitarian workers are
the Mekele site was related to Tigray’s 6 million people, also trying to reach the dis-
to weapons. “Not at all,” Ethiopia’s government this placed and often hungry
Kindeya Gebrehiwot told the week called those expecta- people in the Amhara and
AP, calling it a garage “with tions “absurd” while the Ti- Afar regions, where com-
many old tires. That is why it gray forces now fight in the munications blackouts and
is still blazing.” neighboring regions of Am- active fighting challenge ef-
hara and Afar. Hundreds of forts to confirm claims by the
Amit Abrha, who said she thousands of people have warring sides. Witnesses have
(AP) — New airstrikes hit forces and the Tigray ones was a worker at the site, said been displaced there, widen- told the AP that some Tigray
the capital of Ethiopia’s who long dominated the na- she didn’t hear the airstrike ing the deadly crisis. forces are killing civilians, the
Tigray region and another tional government before a coming and collapsed when latest abuses in a war marked
community on Wednes- falling-out with Prime Min- the attack occurred. “People “Although not all movements by gang-rapes, mass expul-
day, as video from Mekele ister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 picked me up. And when the have yet taken place, there sions and widespread deten-
showed injured people Nobel Peace Prize winner. explosions continued, I went will probably be a reduction tions of ethnic Tigrayans.
with bloodied faces be- out and saw a person that from nearly 530 to around
ing rushed to vehicles and At least 14 people were in- I know injured and on the 220 U.N. staff on the ground This week’s airstrikes in the
thick black smoke rising jured in the airstrikes in Me- ground,” she said in video in Tigray,” U.N. humanitari- Tigray capital “appear to be
in the sky. Ethiopia’s gov- kele and three were in critical footage obtained by the AP, as an spokesman Saviano Abreu part of efforts to weaken
ernment said it targeted condition, Hayelom Kebede, the smoke billowed behind told the AP. The decision is Tigray’s armed resistance,
facilities to make and re- the former director of Ti- her and fellow residents tried “directly linked to the op- which has recently made
pair weapons, which a gray’s flagship Ayder Referral to control the flames. eration constraints we have further gains in the eastern
spokesman for the rival Hospital, told the AP. been faced with over the last Amhara region, with fighting
Tigray forces denied. The attack came two days months” along with the vola- ongoing in some areas. Along
“Indeed there have been after Ethiopia’s air force tile security situation, he said. with superior manpower,
Meanwhile, the United Na- airstrikes in Mekele to- confirmed airstrikes in Me- control of the skies is one
tions told The Associated day,” Ethiopian government kele that a witness said killed The lack of fuel and cash be- of the few remaining areas
Press it is slashing by more spokesman Legesse Tulu told three children. The air force cause of the government’s of military advantage for the
than half its Tigray presence the AP, saying they targeted said communications tow- blockade on Tigray “has made federal government,” Inter-
as an Ethiopian government facilities at the Mesfin Indus- ers and equipment were at- it extremely challenging for national Crisis Group ana-
blockade halts humanitar- trial Engineering site that Ti- tacked. Mekele hadn’t seen humanitarians to sustain life- lyst William Davison said in
ian aid efforts and people die gray forces use to make and fighting since June, when saving activities” at the time a statement. “The bombing
from lack of food. repair heavy weapons. Le- Tigray forces retook much of they’re needed most, Abreu of urban areas, however, re-
gesse said the airstrikes had the region in a dramatic turn added. inforces the impression that
The war in Africa’s second- “no intended harm to civil- in the war. Addis Ababa is willing to risk
most populous country has ians.” Some 1,200 humanitarian civilian lives in Tigray as part
ground on for nearly a year The airstrikes have caused workers including the re- of its military efforts.”
between Ethiopian and allied Another airstrike hours later fresh panic in a city under duced U.N. presence will re-

Bus bombs kill 14 in Syria capital; shells elsewhere kill 10

(AP) — Two bombs attached to a bus carrying Forces of President Bashar Assad now control and roads near schools as students were heading to
Syrian troops exploded in Damascus during much of Syria after military support from allies classes.
the morning rush hour Wednesday, a military Russia and Iran helped tip the balance of power in
official said. Fourteen people were killed in his favor. U.S. and Turkish troops, meanwhile, are Besides the four children killed, their teacher also
the attack, one of the deadliest in the capital deployed in parts of the country’s north. died, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children’s
in years. agency.
The explosions in Damascus, which also left sev-
While the Syrian government’s decade-long con- eral wounded, happened at a busy intersection near “Today’s violence is yet another reminder that
flict with insurgents continues in parts of the coun- a main bus transfer point where commuters and the war in Syria has not come to an end. Civil-
try, including the rebel-held northwest, bombings schoolchildren typically converge. After the blasts, ians, among them many children, keep bearing the
in Damascus have become exceedingly rare since Syrian state TV showed footage of smoke rising brunt of a brutal decade-long conflict,” the agency
President Bashar Assad’s troops pushed opposition from a charred bus as soldiers hosed down the ve- said.
fighters from the capital’s suburbs in 2018. hicle and onlookers flocked to a nearby bridge to
watch. The attack was one of the most violent since the
Shortly after the Damascus bombings, government 2020 truce in the northwest, which has been re-
shells landed in a rebel-held town in northern Syr- A little known group calling itself the Qasioun Bri- peatedly violated. Government forces often vow to
ia, killing at least 10 people, four of them children. gades claimed responsibility for the attack, saying take territories still out of their control.
The attack, part of the government campaign to re- the bombs were attached under the bus. It added
gain control of areas still in opposition hands, was in a short statement posted on social media that
the worst violence in the region since a truce in attacks in government-held areas will continue in
March last year was negotiated by Turkey and Rus- retaliation for “massacres committed against our
sia, allies of the opposition and Syrian government, people in the liberated north.”
respectively. In rebel-held northwest Syria, rescue workers re-
ported 10 people were killed, including four chil-
The bloody day in Syria shook a relative calm that dren and a woman, in government shelling of
had taken hold in the war-torn country in recent a town in the last rebel enclave in the country’s
months. While the conflict remains unresolved, a northwest. U.N. Deputy Regional Humanitar-
decade later, military activities have subsided. ian Coordinator Mark Cutts described as “shock-
ing” the reports of the shelling that hit a market