Even as Ethiopia’s warring sides attend their first formal peace talks in a devastating two-year conflict, witnesses in the country’s embattled Tigray region tell The Associated Press that forces from neighboring Eritrea are killing some civilians and looting as they and allied Ethiopian forces head for the regional capital.
With internet and telephone access to the region cut off, and independent journalists barred from Tigray, observers say it is increasingly hard to reach people for accounts of the fighting that erupted again in August after a monthslong lull. The United States now estimates hundreds of thousands of people could have been killed in the war marked by abuses on all sides as fears grow the conflict has reached its deadliest phase.
