New bombings hit the capital of the Tigray region, Mekele, on Tuesday, September 13, according to local authorities and the director of the hospital. This is the third time since the resumption of hostilities on August 24 that the city has been the victim of airstrikes. But these come the day after a proposal for a ceasefire and the resumption of negotiations by the Tigrayan authorities. A proposal to which the federal government has not responded.
In many respects, what the Tigrayan authorities say were drone strikes against Mekele early on Tuesday morning can be seen as the only response of the Ethiopian authorities at present to outstretched hand monday september 12 by the Tigrayans.
It is not known who the targets of the shooting were, and the absence of independent witnesses in the area makes it difficult to verify the information. The close adviser to the president of the regional government, Getachew Reda, affirms all the same that it is the campus of Adi Haki which was bombarded, in the south-west of Mekele.
The director of the Ayder hospital in Mekele, who has a Twitter account, says that an injured person has been brought to his services and that ” the total number of victims is not yet known “. The Dimtsi Weyane TV channel was also affected and stopped broadcasting, according to Tigray TV.
These strikes occur in a particular context. The UN, the African Union, the United States, the European Union and several foreign chancelleries had, in the last 24 hours, called on Addis Ababa to seize ” the opportunity to make peace, after the Tigrayan authorities had offered a dialogue without preconditions and under the aegis of the AU, which they had refused until then.
Before the strikes on Tuesday, the government had not reacted officially through its usual channels and had not responded to requests from the press.