ONLY ON AP New airstrike hits Tigray's capital

Описание: (20 Oct 2021) New airstrikes have hit the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region, residents said Wednesday, as video from the scene showed injured people with bloodied faces being helped into ambulances and thick black smoke rising into the sky.
The Ethiopian government said the airstrikes targeted facilities at the Mesfin Industrial Engineering site that Tigray forces use to make and repair heavy weapons, and that civilians were not the target.
A spokesman for the Tigray external affairs office denied this, saying the site was a garage with "many old tires", which he said explained "why it is still blazing".
Tigray forces didn't report any immediate deaths from the airstrikes in Mekele - confirmed by a resident and a humanitarian worker.
The attack came two days after Ethiopia's air force confirmed airstrikes in Mekele that a witness said killed three children. The air force said communications towers and equipment were attacked.
Mekele hadn't seen fighting since June, when Tigray forces retook much of the region in a dramatic turn in the war.
The airstrikes have caused fresh panic in a city under siege, where doctors and others have described running out of medicines and other basic needs.
Meanwhile, the United Nations told The Associated Press it is slashing by more than half its Tigray presence as an Ethiopian government blockade halts humanitarian aid efforts and people die from lack of food.
The war in Africa’s second-most populous country has ground on for nearly a year between Ethiopian and allied forces and the Tigray ones who long dominated the national government before a falling-out with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

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