Ethiopia said its armed forces are approaching the capital of the Tigray region, Macalle, a city on the plateau of about 500,000 inhabitants. The clash between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominates the Tigray region and is in conflict with the central government, has been going on for two weeks: in this period hundreds of people would have died and 30,000 refugees would have been forced to flee to neighboring Sudan. Both sides in the conflict accuse the other of atrocities and blocking access to humanitarian aid. The leader of the Tigray rebel forces, Debretsion Gebremichael, confirmed to Reuters Thursday that Macalle had been bombed, but did not provide further details. The central government denied bombing civilian targets.
The armed clashes between the two sides began in the first week of November , and have gradually intensified. On Sunday, local Tigray forces fired some rockets against Asmara, the capital of neighboring Eritrea, probably to try to "internationalize" the conflict: the TPLF, in fact, claimed that Eritrean soldiers are fighting alongside the Ethiopian army - statement which for now is not met - in an attempt to make the federal government seem weak and troubled, so troubled as to seek help from its historical enemies, the Eritreans.
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