Ten people were killed in the second day of airstrikes in Ethiopia’s Tigray region on Wednesday, hospital officials said, in attacks that came after authorities expressed readiness for a ceasefire.
The twin drone strikes hit a neighborhood in Tigray’s capital Mekele around 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), killing 10 and wounding more than a dozen, two officials at the city’s largest hospital said. war-torn region.
The airstrikes follow an announcement by Tigrayan authorities on Sunday that they were ready for African Union (AU)-led talks to end nearly two years of brutal war in northern Ethiopia.
On Wednesday, the Ethiopian government said it was “committed” to the AU-led peace process following calls from the international community for warring parties to seize the opportunity for peace.
“The death toll has risen to 10,” Kibrom Gebreselassie, a senior official at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, told AFP via text message. In a later statement, he said 14 people were injured.
Fasika Amdeslasie, a surgeon at the same hospital, confirmed the death toll, adding that the first shelling injured two women followed by a second attack “on people gathered to help and see the victims.”
“Among the victims, a father was dead and his son is taken to surgery,” he said on Twitter.
AFP was unable to independently verify the claims. Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for more than a year.
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