Thousands Reported Killed In Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict

Thousands have been reported killed in clashes in northern Ethiopia, as fighting between the military and Tigray rebels continues.

The conflict has been raging for 10 months, pushing hundreds of thousands of people into conditions of famine.

The rebel forces said on Sunday that they had killed 3,073 “enemy forces”, with 4,473 injured.It comes after the military said it had killed more than 5,600 rebels, without specifying a timeframe.

Senior army general Bacha Debele said a further 2,300 rebels were wounded and 2,000 captured. Correspondents say the numbers may refer to recent battles.

It is hard to verify figures from either side due to a communications blackout in the region.

The rebels said their figures were from the Afar and Amhara regions which border Tigray, adding that they had seized military tanks and weapons.

Berhane Gebrekristos, Ethiopia’s former ambassador to the US, and now a supporter of the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) group, described the government’s claims as “false and laughable”.

He accused the military of trying to come up with “fake information” to give a morale boost to its troops.

He said the last five or six days, there were major military offensives by the TPLF in the two regions. In Afar and in the Amhara region, the Ethiopian military lost eight divisions.

The war began last year, after months of feuding between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and leaders of the TPLF, the main political party in the Tigray region.

The prime minister sent troops to Tigray to overthrow the regional government after accusing the TPLF of seizing military camps.

The government has designed the TPLF as a terrorist group, while it says it is the legitimate government of Tigray.