TPLF says Ethiopian government ‘raining’ bombs on civilians in Tigray

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia’s rebellious Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has accused the federal government of resorting to aerial bombardment against civilians in the war-ravaged Tigray region, just days after an airstrike on an IDP camp resulted in the killing of at least 56 people.

Early, TPLF spokesman Getachew K. Reda accused Ethiopian federal forces of carrying out an airstrike that killed 56 and wounded 30 people. There is no independent verification of the TPLF claims, but aid agencies have ceased operations in northwest Ethiopia following the alleged airstrike.

In a statement, the TPLF said the government in Addis Ababa is “dissatisfied with the pace of its slow-motion mass murder of the people of Tigray through starvation” and “has now resorted to raining aerial bombs on innocent civilians.”

“Since October 18, the genocidal regime has ratcheted up its aerial bombardment of cities and towns across Tigray, including Mekelle, far from the frontlines. These indiscriminate aerial assaults have killed hundreds of people, and wounded hundreds more,” the TPLF statement added.

The rebel group – which is considered a terrorist organization in Ethiopia – said the latest air raid “encapsulates the Abiy regime’s disdain for international law, and its lack of basic human decency.”

“Just around midnight on January 8, the Abiy Regime conducted drone strikes in Dedebit, located in North-Western Tigray that targeted an internally displaced persons (IDPS) camp, killing over 56 people and wounding over 100 others. Having escaped from the clutch of a marauding gang of genocidal forces in Western Tigray, these innocent Tigrayans were murdered while asleep on Christmas night,” the statement adds.

It said many “hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans have been forcibly evicted from their homes in Western Tigray, over 70 thousand have found refuge in the Sudan, thousands have been brutally murdered, and thousands are being kept in concentration camps under cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions.”

“The IDPS that the genocidal Abiy regime targeted in its latest orgy of aerial violence are some of those that found sanctuary in North-Western Tigray after having been forcibly evicted from their homes,” the statement continued.

It says the attack on the displaced’s camp “came on the same day as the Eritrean military launched fresh attacks against our forces in Adi Tsetser, located in North-Western Tigray close to the town of Sheraro.”

“The Eritrean military has been knee-deep in the genocidal war on Tigray since November 2020 and the latest attack is an extension of its aggression against the people of Tigray. The latest aerial attack on IDPS by the Abiy regime is, thus, intelligible in the context of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments’ brazen disregard for international law,” it says.