64 Dead in Ethiopian Airstrike on Tigray

Relatives of Togoga residents where the airstrike hit a market wait for information in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 23, 2021. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP)
Relatives of Togoga residents where the airstrike hit a market wait for information in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 23, 2021. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP)
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64 Dead in Ethiopian Airstrike on Tigray

Relatives of Togoga residents where the airstrike hit a market wait for information in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 23, 2021. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP)
Relatives of Togoga residents where the airstrike hit a market wait for information in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 23, 2021. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP)

Ethiopia’s military on Thursday said it was responsible for a deadly airstrike on a busy marketplace in the country’s Tigray region. Health workers said the attack killed at least 64 people, including children, but the military insisted only combatants were targeted.

A doctor who managed to reach the market in Togoga village after Ethiopian soldiers blocked medical teams from responding described a “horrible” scene of badly wounded people lying on the ground, crying in pain with no medical care.

“It was very traumatizing,” he told The Associated Press. “I think most of the patients, they died because we were late there, because care wasn’t available.”

Most of the patients taken to regional hospitals weren’t critical, he said: “The critical patients were already dead.” Like others, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

A military spokesman, Col. Getnet Adane, told journalists that fighters supporting the Tigray region’s former leaders had assembled to celebrate Martyrs’ Day on Tuesday when the airstrike occurred.

“The Ethiopian air force uses the latest technology, so it conducted a precision strike that was successful,” he said.

But the doctor who reached the scene said “most of the patients we found were mothers, children and elderly fathers. There were few young men.”

The airstrike wounded more than 100 people, half of them seriously, a regional health official said. Health workers said Ethiopian forces blocked medical teams from responding and shot at a Red Cross ambulance trying to reach the scene.

Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble and dozens of survivors were still arriving at regional hospitals with shrapnel and blunt trauma wounds two days after the airstrike, said a doctor in the regional capital, Mekele. The International Committee of the Red Cross called the transport of seriously injured to Mekele “a matter of life and death.”

The airstrike, one of the worst massacres of the war, came amid some of the fiercest fighting in Tigray since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces, supported by neighboring Eritrea, pursue Tigray’s former leaders.

The Ethiopian military spokesman denied Tigray fighters’ claims of gains in recent days, saying Ethiopian forces had been deployed to other locations for Monday’s national election.



Trump Says Will ‘Not Put up with’ Zelensky War Stance

US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in Washington, DC, US, February 28, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in Washington, DC, US, February 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Says Will ‘Not Put up with’ Zelensky War Stance

US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in Washington, DC, US, February 28, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in Washington, DC, US, February 28, 2025. (Reuters)

Donald Trump said Monday that Washington would "not put up with" Volodymyr Zelensky's rhetoric much longer, as the US president prepared to meet his top team after a disastrous Oval Office row with the Ukrainian.

"This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put up with it for much longer," Trump said on social media, citing a story quoting Ukraine's president saying the end of the war with Moscow was far off.

"This guy doesn't want there to be Peace as long as he has America's backing."

Trump also took aim at European leaders who met Zelensky for crisis talks in London at the weekend, saying that they had "stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US."

"Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking," Trump said on his Truth Social network.

Trump's broadside came after a meeting between Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelensky at the White House on Friday which descended into an extraordinary on-camera argument.

Trump and Vance raised their voices and accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and ungrateful for US military assistance, as the Ukrainian pushed his demand for US security guarantees as part of any truce.

Zelensky was then told to leave the White House, with a crucial deal giving Washington preferential access to Ukraine's mineral resources left unsigned.

Trump is now meeting his top advisors on Monday to discuss next steps on Ukraine, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told reporters.

White House officials did not confirm a report by the news outlet Axios that Trump was considering cutting all military aid to Kyiv following the row.

European leaders, who have offered peacekeepers to guarantee any ceasefire but also want a US "backstop", met in London on Sunday in a desperate bid to resolve the row.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by telephone Monday with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy to discuss the leaders' meeting in London.

Rubio "confirmed the United States is ready to negotiate to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict and will continue working with the UK towards peace in Ukraine," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.