Twelve days of escalation of force between Ethiopian government forces and the local political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the Tigray region in the north of the country, has admitted to firing missiles at Asmara, the capital of neighboring Eritrea, citing the Ethiopian military’s use of Eritrea’s airport to attack Tigray.
No casualties have been reported near Asma airport, which was hit by the missile on Saturday night. Tigrayans accuse the Eritrean army of crossing into Ethiopia to support government forces.
Ethiopia’s prime minister tweeted on Sunday that government forces are “fully capable of achieving their military operational objectives on their own,” appearing to deny cooperation with the Eritrean army.
The conflict has led to a massive exodus of refugees, with at least 25,000 Ethiopians now fleeing to Sudan, and the Sudanese government estimates the total number of refugees could be as high as 200,000.
Separately, Amnesty International released an investigative report last week on the massacre of civilians in the town of Mai-Kadra in the southwestern state of Tigray on the night of November 9, which left dozens, if not hundreds, dead. Most of those killed were day laborers, unrelated to the ongoing armed conflict.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission also said on Sunday that gunmen attacked a bus in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region on Saturday night, killing at least 34 people. There were other violent incidents in the region during the day, and no link between the attack and the Tigrayan army has yet been established.
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