Rare information begins to filter by demand for capturing the capital of Tigray, Mekele, by the Federal Army on Saturday 28 November. The Red Cross, for example, claims that the city’s hospitals are overwhelmed and lack everything. In the meantime, the struggle for press releases resumed without it being possible to independently verify them.
On Sunday, November 29, it was calm in Mekele, according to the Red Cross. Still, the city’s hospital lacks everything: food, medicine and even body bags. The Red Cross also mentions a thousand Eritreans who came to the city hungry and poor on Saturday after leaving the camps where they lived near Shire.
For their part, the commanders of the Federal Army are multiplying reassuring statements about the situation and in particular about the threat that would now be posed by any attacks from TPLF forces that took the makis. And in Humera, on the Sudanese border, state television claimed that the army had discovered 70 graves and mass graves inside the airport.
► To read also: Conflict in Tigray: Ethiopia announces that it has taken “complete control” of Mekele
But the belligerent declarations remain inexplicable, in the absence of telecommunications and access from the press and humanitarian workers to the region. It is not known if it is still fighting after the government announced that the military operations have ended.
UN fears serious abuses and urges Abiy Ahmed to clarify “emergency”
Silent for 24 hours, Tigray TV Tigray TV resumed its broadcasts on Sunday afternoon. She claimed that the fighting would continue in Adigrat. Supporting images also claim that a Mig-29, a fighter plane from the federal army, was shot down in the mountains 60 kilometers from Mekele. A pilot, shown in the photos, was reportedly captured.
The director of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said he was “very concerned” about the fate of the 100,000 refugees living in Tigray. In response to reports of kidnappings in camps inhabited by the Eritrean army, he said these were “major violations of international standards” and called on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to “clarify the” emergency “.
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