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A clash between al-Shabaab militants, and Somali soldiers backed by civilians left dozens dead this week, the Ministry of Information said Tuesday.
The ministry told Voice of America that militants attacked a military base in the central town of Ba’adweyene on Monday morning, killing four soldiers and 11 civilians who took part in the battle.
Militants killed at least 40 farm workers in rice fields near the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, news agencies and Nigerian media reported.
The attack, which injured six other people, took place in the village of Koshobe in Nigeria’s restive Borno state. A local anti-jihadist militia told news agency AFP that the fighters tied up the farm workers and slit their throats.
Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) have taken control of Mekelle, the capital of the country’s Tigray region, according to a tweet from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The city was under fierce bombardment earlier on Saturday, a humanitarian source on the ground and eyewitnesses who have fled the city told CNN.
Ethiopia’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has once again fired at least four rockets into Eritrea, media reports said on Friday.
Rockets fired by TPLF forces landed near residential areas in Eritrea’s capital of Asmara, as well as towns including Dekemehari, Gemehalo and Nefasit, the Eritrean Press said in a report.
Ethiopia’s prime minister has ordered federal military forces to launch a “final offensive” on the capital of the restive Tigray region after his 72-hour ultimatum for dissident local leaders to surrender expired.
In a statement posted on social media, Abiy Ahmed said great care would be taken to protect innocent civilians from harm and said efforts would be made by government troops to ensure the city of Mekelle, which has a population of 500,000, was not “severely damaged”.