30 killed after airstrike hits market in Ethiopia's conflict-torn Tigray
Jun 24, 2021
Addis Ababa [Ethiopia], June 24 : As many as 30 people were killed after an airstrike in Ethiopia's war-torn northern region of Tigray hit a market, according to eyewitnesses.
Two injured survivors of the attack in the small town of Togoga detailed the incident to CNN after they were brought to a hospital in Tigray's capital Mekelle by Red Cross ambulances.
The bomb struck a market on the 33rd 'martyrs day' in Tigray -- a date marking the Hawzen Massacre that killed more than 1,000 Tigrayan people at a market in Hawzen towards the end of the Ethiopian Civil War.
Moreover, around ten ambulances were later blocked from leaving to assist the injured as they reached the outskirts of Mekelle, with the military accusing them of going to help the Tigray Defense Forces, according to medical sources.
A team of doctors that tried to reach the scene in the evening were shot at by the military, eyewitnesses additionally informed.
"Wounded civilians from the Togoga Massacre, who could have been saved easily in a hospital, have died overnight, as the invaders refused to allow ambulances to travel to the area. Their level of cruelty, their determination to see Tigrayans falling like leaves is unparalleled," tweeted Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head of the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party on Wednesday.
The disastrous seven-month-old civil war in the northern region of Tigray, where a powerful regional political party is waging a guerilla-style conflict against Ethiopia's military. The Ethiopian military has aligned with forces from neighboring Eritrea and Ethiopia's Amhara region.
All sides have been accused of war crimes, and humanitarian groups say hundreds of thousands in Tigray are experiencing famine conditions.
Ethiopia's government has steadfastly asserted that all blame for the fighting and ensuing suffering of people in Tigray lays at the feet of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which the government accuses of attacking a military command post in 2020
Meanwhile, Ethiopian voters on Monday went to polls on Monday in a national election that has been held as a long-awaited emergence into a multi-party democracy.
