The interim government of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region has fled as rebel fighters advanced into the region’s capital and the national government announced a “unilateral ceasefire”.

Witnesses said federal soldiers and police were also abandoning Mekelle late on Monday, and fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard as Tigrayan fighters took the city’s airport and other key positions.

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Afghanistan’s armed forces have repelled a full-blown Taliban attack on a key district in northern Samangan province and killed a handful of insurgents and foiling their longstanding plan to capture the district centre.

District Chief Haji Fazlullah on Saturday said Taliban insurgents had staged a full-scale dawn attack from all fronts on Feroz Nakhchir district, but they met with counterassault of Afghan security forces. in which two militants were killed and their attack was pushed back.

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Dozens of militia fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo have laid down their weapons and surrendered, the first to do so since President Felix Tshisekedi announced martial law to tackle worsening security in two eastern provinces.

Around 140 men from various local armed groups sang and clapped as they handed themselves in to authorities during a ceremony in Congo’s North Kivu province on Monday. Around 70 weather-beaten weapons, mostly rifles, were also turned in.

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The army in Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, has clashed with a local militia opposed to February’s military coup.

The clashes are the first time the People’s Defense Forces (PDF) have come up against the army in a major city.

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Syrian government forces and rebels exchanged shellfire in north-western Syria on Monday, killing at least 10 people, most of them in rebel-held areas, state media reported.

The area has had increasing violence in recent weeks, between government troops and insurgents on the edge of the last rebel stronghold in the north-western province of Idlib.

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