2021 Mekelle airstrikes | |
---|---|
Part of the October 2021 Tigray offensive of the Tigray War | |
Type | Airstrike |
Location | Mekelle, Tigray Region, Ethiopia 13°29′38″N39°27′58″E / 13.494°N 39.466°E |
Date | 18–22 October 2021 |
Executed by | Ethiopian Air Force |
Casualties | 4 [1] killed 9 [1] injured |
On 18 October 2021, the Ethiopian Air Force conducted two airstrikes on the city of Mekelle in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia during the Tigray War. [2] 3 children were killed in the strikes. [3]
On 20 October, there were new air strikes targeting inhabited areas of Tigray's capital city. [4] A large enterprise, Mesfin Industrial Engineering, was also targeted.
Airstrikes continued on 21 and 22 October; the latter was nearby Mekelle University main campus, and Mekelle Airport and coincided with the landing time of a UN humanitarian flight. As a consequence, the UN cancelled further humanitarian flights to Mekelle. [5]
The first airstrike struck near a cement factory on the outskirts of Mekelle killing 3 children according to a local hospital. [3] The second strike hit the city center near the Planet Hotel damaging the hotel and nearby buildings including Mesfin Industrial Engineering, killing one engineer. [6] Nine people were injured. [3] Bombs are launched from high altitudes, by fear of the TDF aerial defence and often miss their targets. In case of the humanitarian flight, the aim of organising a bombing raid at that very moment, might have been to induce the aerial defence into error and possibly shoot down the incoming civil aircraft. Fortunately, Mekelle Airport control tower could inform the pilots timely so that the flight returned to Addis Ababa without damage. [5]
The airstrikes were first denied, [6] then later admitted by the Ethiopian government. [7] The Ethiopian Press Agency said the airstrikes hit media and communications equipment used by Tigrayan forces. [7] Tigrayan spokesman Getachew Reda said the airstrikes were targeting civilians noting that Monday, the day of the attack, is market day in Mekelle and the second airstrike hit a nearby market. [8] Billene Seyoum, spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said. “Civilians and civilian areas were not part of the target.” [8]
Events of 2020 in Ethiopia.
The Tigray War was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between forces allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other.
The Mekelle offensive was a military campaign fought between the armed forces of Ethiopia and the Tigray Region to reach the city of Mekelle in the Tigray Region, from 17 November to 28 November 2020. It was part of the Tigray War.
This timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
Events in the year 2021 in Ethiopia.
Casualties of the Tigray War refers to the civilian and military deaths and injuries in the Tigray War that started in November 2020, in which rape and other sexual violence are also widespread. Precise casualty figures are uncertain. According to researchers at Ghent University in Belgium, as many as 600,000 people had died as a result of war-related violence and famine by late 2022. The scale of the death and destruction led The New York Times to describe it in November 2022 as "one of the world’s bloodiest contemporary conflicts."
All sides of the Tigray War have been repeatedly accused of committing war crimes since it began in November 2020. In particular, the Ethiopian federal government, the State of Eritrea, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Amhara regional forces have been the subject of numerous reports of both war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Beginning with the onset of the Tigray War in November 2020, acute food shortages leading to death and starvation became widespread in northern Ethiopia, and the Tigray, Afar and Amhara Regions in particular. As of August 2022, there are 13 million people facing acute food insecurity, and an estimated 150,000–200,000 had died of starvation by March 2022. In the Tigray Region alone, 89% of people are in need of food aid, with those facing severe hunger reaching up to 47%. In a report published in June 2021, over 350,000 people were already experiencing catastrophic famine conditions. It is the worst famine to happen in East Africa since 2011–2012.
On 28 November 2020, Mekelle was hit with an airstrike campaign during the Mekelle offensive of the Tigray War.
The Tigray Defense Forces, colloquially called the Tigray Army is a paramilitary group located in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. It was founded by former generals of the Ethiopian Military in 2020 to combat federal forces enforcing national government mandates in the Tigray region, culminating in 2020 with the outbreak of the Tigray War. The TDF has made use of guerilla tactics and strategies. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported that the TDF has committed war crimes against civilians including gang rape and extrajudicial killing during their occupation of both the Afar and Amhara regions. According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice, TDF combatants have been found liable for upwards of 540 civilians casualties. as of 28 December 2021.
The Togoga airstrike was an airstrike by the Ethiopian Air Force on the town of Togoga in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, on a market day, during the Tigray War, on 22 June 2021. 64 people were killed and 180 others were injured.
Operation Alula Aba Nega, commonly shortened to Operation Alula, was a counter-offensive during the Tigray War by the Tigray Defense Forces against the Ethiopian military and its allies in Tigray. The operation was named after Ethiopian general Ras Alula Aba Nega, who was of Tigrayan descent. The offensive was launched on 11 June 2021 and recaptured vast swaths of territory across central and eastern Tigray, including the regional capital of Mekelle.
The TDF–OLA joint offensive was a rebel offensive in the Tigray War and the OLA insurgency starting in late October 2021 launched by a joint rebel coalition of the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) and Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) against the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) and government. The TDF and OLA took control of several towns south of the Amhara Region in the direction of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in late October and early November. Claims of war crimes included that of the TDF extrajudicially executing 100 youths in Kombolcha, according to deral authorities.
This Timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
This Timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
In the late hours of 7 January 2022, the Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) carried out an airstrike on a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) set up in Dedebit Elementary School, located in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Between 56 and 59 people were killed in the attack, and at least 30 others were left injured.
On 4 October 2022, the Ethiopian National Defense Force launched an airstrike at a school housing internally displaced people in the town of Adi Daero in La'ilay Adiyabo, killing more than 50 and injuring at least 70 others. According to Tigrayan authorities and some witnesses the death toll was at least 65. The attack is one of the deadliest in the Tigray War.
The Ethiopia–Tigray peace agreement, commonly called the Pretoria Agreement or the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA), is a peace treaty between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) that was signed 2 November 2022, wherein both parties agreed to a "permanent cessation of hostilities" to end the Tigray War. The agreement was made effective the next day on 3 November, marking the two-year anniversary of the war.
On August 26, 2022, an airstrike allegedly from the Ethiopian National Defense Force hit a kindergarten in Tigrayan capital of Mekelle, killing seven people including two children.
Adi Daero, is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia located at 977 km north of Addis Ababa and 278 km northwest of Mekelle along the highway which runs from Shire to Sheraro to Humera. The town is also the administrative center of the La'ilay Adiyabo woreda (district).
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