Ethiopia Air Strike: 26 Dead in Amhara
A medical official and a resident told AFP on Monday that an air strike had killed at least 26 people in Ethiopia’s troubled Amhara region, which continues to be rocked by violent confrontations. The news came as the region was being rocked by fatal clashes.
The attack on Sunday was the bloodiest one reported since months of tensions between members of the Ethiopian army and a local militia known as Fano flared in towns and cities across Amhara.
The official at the hospital in Finote Selam stated that “twenty-two bodies were brought to the hospital,” and that four other people who were gravely injured passed away shortly after arriving at the hospital.
“We’ve so far received 55 injured patients, of which more than 40 are gravely injured,” he continued, speaking anonymously out of safety concerns. “We’ve received so far 55 injured patients.”
A local man who arrived not long after the attack told AFP that he “helped in the burial of bodies of 30 victims” after the attack.
According to him, he witnessed “a medium-sized freight vehicle that had been completely destroyed in an air strike with dead bodies strewn all around the vehicle.”
On August 4, the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared a state of emergency throughout Amhara for a period of six months. Several cities remain under curfew, despite the fact that violence has decreased over the course of the past week.
Seven months after a peace settlement ended a bloody battle that had been going on for two years in the neighboring province of Tigray, the turmoil rekindled anxieties about the stability of Africa’s second most populous country, which is Ethiopia.
Ethiopia Air Strike: 26 Dead in Amhara
