Wednesday 30 / April / 2025
The Ethiopian government said on Saturday that fighters from the northern Tigray region had fired rockets at the cities of Bahir Dar and Gondar in the Amhara region.
According to a tweet from the special task force set up to provide information about the government's operations in Tigray: "In the late hours of November 13, 2020, a rocket was fired towards Bahir Dar and Gondar cities."
The statement also said that the airport areas in both cities had "sustained damage" as a result of the attack.
The Amhara region's troops have been fighting alongside government forces against soldiers loyal to the Tigray ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in a conflict that erupted earlier this month.
Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the TPLF, told a news agency that while he did not know anything about an attack, "any airport used to attack Tigray will be a legitimate target."
The airports in both Bahir Dar and Gondar are used for military as well as civilian aircraft.
Residents reportedly heard gunfire on Friday night, however, this has not yet been confirmed.
A doctor at a hospital in Gondar, speaking on condition of anonymity to a news agency, said that "there were at least two dead" and "10 to 15 injured." He said the injuries he saw came from an explosion rather than bullets adding that there were "no civilians at all" among the dead or injured.
A statement from the Amhara regional government said that "the situation was controlled within a few minutes" and "our cities are in peace."
Conflict may spread
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military offensive against the Tigray region on November 4 after accusing local Tigray troops of attacking federal military camps in the area. The TPLF denies the claims.
Tigray is a federal state with many autonomous powers and home to many ethnically distinct people who make up around 6% of Ethiopia's 110 million-strong population.
The United Nations and the African Union have expressed concern that the fighting may spill over into other regions and destabilize the already precarious wider region of the Horn of Africa.
Hundreds of people have already been killed in the clashes and more than 14,500 people have already fled into neighboring Sudan.
On Thursday, Amnesty International confirmed reports of a "massacre" of civilians in the Tigray region. Following Amnesty's report, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for an investigation into the alleged mass killings.
"If confirmed as having been deliberately carried out by a party to the current fighting, these killings of civilians would of course amount to war crimes," Bachelet said in a statement on Friday.
Tigray has been under a communications blackout since the operation began, making it difficult to verify claims from both camps about the situation on the ground.
