The forces of the Ethiopian federal government launched two air raids on rebel positions in the west and north of the Tigray region, while the United Nations confirmed that there are nearly seven million people in northern Ethiopia in dire need of humanitarian aid.
Government forces have expanded the scope of their aerial bombardment in the region, where the Tigray People’s Liberation Front controls most of its territory, and it has been under aerial bombardment for about a week.
The government said it had targeted facilities used by the LTTE to train its fighters and manufacture military equipment in Mai Tsibri, to the west of the provincial capital, Mekele, and in Adwa, to the north.
On Wednesday, weapons caches of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front were bombed in Maqli and the town of Agbi, about 80 km to the west.
A hospital official told AFP that Wednesday’s attack in Maqli wounded at least eight people, including a pregnant woman.
On the humanitarian situation in the country and the Tigray region in particular, Gemma Connell, the Regional Humanitarian Operations Officer for Eastern and Southern Africa, said last Friday, “There are nearly seven million people in northern Ethiopia who are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, and this includes nearly five million people in Tigray.”
“There are many people who have been internally displaced, some of them more than once, and there are high rates of acute malnutrition that are rising every day, not only among children, but also among pregnant and lactating women,” she added.
