The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, is following with grave concern, reports of increased fighting in the Tigray Region of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. 

In a Sunday press statement, the Chairperson strongly called for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and the resumption of humanitarian services. 

In August the fighting resumed in Northern Ethiopia as Ethiopian air forces bombed the capital of the Tigray region. The region’s local tv station said that the attack hit a kindergarten called Red Kids Paradise in the Tigrayan capital of Mekele.

The Chairperson urged the Parties to recommit to dialogue as per their agreement to direct talks to be convened in South Africa by a high-level team led by the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa, and supported by the international community.

On Saturday, US Senator Bob Menendez, Chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on the parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia to immediately cease hostilities, and for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy to ‘order his Eritrean mercenaries’ out of Ethiopia and lift his cruel blockade of Tigray. 

Menendez also called on both the Ethiopian government and the TPLF to commit to renewed peace talks without pre-condition.

In a statement, he called for an immediate ceasefire in northern Ethiopia and accountability for perpetrators of human rights abuses following the resumption of hostilities between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in August 2022 after a five-month ceasefire.