Drone hits television station in Tigray
The attack comes amid renewed fighting between Tigrayan fighters and the Ethiopian government.
A drone hit the building of Tigrai TV in Mekelle on Sunday, journalists from the station told news agency AFP. Responsibility for the attack has not been established.
Tigrai TV is considered an important medium for the regional authorities in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia. According to journalists spoken to by AFP, the building was hit at around 06:00 Greenwich Mean Time. The station is said to have stopped broadcasting afterwards.
One journalist told AFP that staff left the building after hearing a loud bang elsewhere. Another journalist said the station has around 400 employees. No reliable information about casualties was immediately available after the attack.
The attack comes as fighting between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the federal government has flared up again. AFP writes that the fighting resumed this week. This is fuelling fears of a return to the civil war that affected Ethiopia between 2020 and 2022.
The federal government in Addis Ababa said on 21 September that Tigrai TV had been suspended indefinitely. Other media outlets were also reportedly barred from broadcasting reports from the station. The government has previously sought to restrict the spread of information from Tigray.
It is unclear who deployed the drone. The available public reports are largely based on the same AFP report and contain no independent inspection of the building, no confirmation of the number of casualties and no evidence concerning the perpetrator. The development is therefore newsworthy, but for now difficult to interpret beyond that.
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The article's central claim is based on an AFP report published by two public platforms. The limited independent confirmation is explicitly stated in the text.
- confirmed A drone hit the building of Tigrai TV in Mekelle. — Reported by journalists from the station to AFP and published by NAMPA and Khaleej Times. source
- confirmed The attack took place during renewed fighting between the TPLF and the Ethiopian federal government. — AFP describes the resumed fighting in the same report. source
- confirmed Responsibility for the attack has not been established. — The public sources consulted do not identify a perpetrator. source
- uncertain Tigrai TV has around 400 employees. — This figure comes from an anonymous source at the station and has not been independently confirmed. source
Editor's note
It is certain that, according to journalists from Tigrai TV, the building was hit by a drone and that the attack coincided with renewed fighting. Independent confirmation, information about casualties and the identity of the attacker are lacking.Sources
- Tigray state TV station hit by drone — AFP via NAMPA
- Tigray state TV station hit by drone as heavy fighting in Ethiopia resumes — Khaleej Times
- Tigrai Television — Wikipedia
More on this in Dutch media
- NRC — „ethiopië tigray”
- NU.nl — „ethiopië tigray”
- De Telegraaf — „ethiopië tigray”