Cape Town - Aid agencies have suspended operations in a zone of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region where dozens of people were reportedly killed in an air strike, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said.
The Tigray region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia, has been engulfed in conflict between Ethiopian government forces, bolstered by Eritrean troops, who have been fighting rebels in Tigray for more than a year in a war that has killed thousands of people.
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) spokesperson Getachew Reda accused Eritrea of launching fresh attacks against the group’s fighters. It has not responded to the accusations, reported news broadcaster BBC News Africa.
According to German online news website Deutsche Welle (DW), reports of the air strike at the camp in Dedebit in north-western Tigray came a day after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed issued a message of reconciliation on Orthodox Christmas.
The federal government has previously denied targeting civilians in the 14-month conflict with rebellious Tigrayan forces.
Earlier on Friday, the federal government freed several opposition leaders from prison and said it would begin dialogue with political opponents in order to foster reconciliation, according to reports by news broadcaster Al Jazeera.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and humanitarian partners continue to face security, bureaucratic and operational challenges in northern Ethiopia.
On December 2, 2021, OCHA reported that 1.2 million people had been displaced from Western Tigray since the beginning of the conflict.
It also stated that Western Tigray remained inaccessible to aid agencies due to security concerns.
African News Agency (ANA)