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.

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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.

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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”.

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A surrender deadline for Tigray forces is just hours away with Ethiopia’s military threatening to bombard the regional capital – a city of half a million people.

Ethiopia’s prime minister on Wednesday rejected growing international demands for dialogue and a halt to deadly fighting in the northern Tigray region as “interference”, saying his country will handle the conflict on its own as the 72-hour surrender ultimatum expires at 16:30 GMT.

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Two bomb blasts killed at least seven people and wounded scores on Tuesday in areas of northwest Syria near the Turkish border and under heavy Turkish influence, witnesses and police sources said.

Five people were killed and 20 wounded, some critically, in a blast that exploded at a road junction on the outskirts of the city of al Bab, north of Aleppo province, they said.

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