Ethiopia
Staggering news from Ethiopia’s Tigray war today. The regional capital, Mekelle, has been retaken by the forces of a former local ruling party that the country’s federal government has been battling for eight months. The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed subsequently announced a unilateral ceasefire. Civilians will now hope for some respite and the delivery of the humanitarian aid they’ve needed for so long. The UN says 350,000 people in Tigray are living in famine conditions and the US has said that 900,000 are on the brink. The Ethiopian government had for months resisted calls to grant unfettered humanitarian access to the region.
More from Al Jazeera here.
Syria
US troops in Syria have come under rocket fire a day after the US carried out bombing raids on Iran-backed militias in the Syria-Iraq border area. The Pentagon said the facilities it attacked were being used to conduct drone strikes inside Iraq. The Iraqi military, in a rare rebuke of US action, condemned the air raids - the second since President Joe Biden took office - as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.
More from the Associated Press here.
Turks and Caicos
Twenty people, including two children, have been found dead in a boat adrift off the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory. Officials have not yet identified the dead or confirmed where they travelled from, though they believe it was from outside the Caribbean region and that the islands were not the intended destination. Haitians fleeing poverty and gang violence have previously travelled to Turks and Caicos and the area is regularly used as a transit point by human traffickers.
More from the UK’s Independent here.