The International Rescue Committee reported on Saturday that a humanitarian worker was one of three individuals murdered following an airstrike on the town of Shire in northern Tigray, Ethiopia.
The aid worker, who was a member of IRC’s health and nutrition team, passed away on Friday as a result of wounds he received while providing help to women and children, IRC said in a statement.
According to the statement, two further civilians were killed and three were injured in the attack, which also injured another IRC employee.
The attack happened in an area where the Ethiopian government and its allies from Eritrea have been fighting Tigray forces intermittently for the past two years.
Requests for comment regarding the event on Friday were not immediately answered by Legesse Tulu, Colonel Getnet Adane, the military spokesperson, or Billene Seyoum, the prime minister’s spokesperson.
Yemane Gebremeskel, the information minister for Eritrea, and Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray military, both declined calls for comment right away.
Since violence restarted in Tigray in August after a five-month ceasefire, aid workers report that scores of people have died in air strikes, including one on October 5 that killed more than 50 when it struck a school housing displaced people.
According to a UN internal dispatch dated October 10, the violence has caused the displacement of around 470,000 people.
The scheduled start of this month’s African Union-led peace negotiations has been postponed due to logistical issues.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the main political party in Tigray, is accused by the federal government of attempting to retake power over the Horn of Africa nation. The TPF ruled Ethiopia’s ruling coalition until 2018.
Leaders in Tigray accuse Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of oppressing Tigrayans and over-centralising power. Both deny the charges leveled against them.
