The Biden administration has determined that all sides in the brutal conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For a year and a half, phone calls to people trying to survive one of the world’s worst conflicts didn’t go through.

Eyewitnesses and aid workers say that allies of Ethiopia’s federal military are looting property and carrying out mass detentions in Tigray.

Dozens of women and girls have been raped and hundreds of civilians killed during fighting in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels say Eritrea has extended its offensive into their region, as diplomats scramble to convene peace talks to resolve the almost two-year-long conflict.

New satellite imagery of one of the world’s most reclusive nations shows a military buildup inside Eritrea near the border with Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, backing up witness accounts of a new, large-scale offensive.

A bridge that’s crucial to delivering desperately needed food to much of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region has been destroyed, as Tigray fighters are said to be approaching other combatants occupying large areas nearby.

The spokesman for the fighters retaking parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region says they will pursue soldiers from neighboring Eritrea back into their country and chase Ethiopian soldiers to Addis Ababa ”if that’s what it takes” to weaken their military powers.

FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 30, 2020 file photo, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responds to questions from members of parliament at the prime minister's office in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)KHARTOUM – Ethiopia's prime minister said Friday that Eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces from the Tigray region, where witnesses have described them looting, killing and raping civilians. The new statement doesn’t say how many Eritrean soldiers have been in Ethiopia, though witnesses have estimated well in the thousands. But since the current Tigray conflict began in November, Abiy has been accused of teaming up with Eritrea to pursue the now-fugitive Tigray leaders. But witnesses have alleged the involvement of Eritrean soldiers from the start of the fighting.

Members of the Tigrayan-Ethiopian community protest against the conflict in the Ethiopia's Tigray region, outside the European Union offices in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, March 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)JOHANNESBURG – Members of Ethiopia's Tigrayan community in South Africa demonstrated in the capital in a bid to bring international attention to the humanitarian crisis in the embattled region. Thursday's demonstration in Pretoria is their second in South Africa in recent months, as Ethiopian authorities face growing pressure to end the war in its Tigray province, home to 6 million of Ethiopia's 110 million people. AdThis does not appear to be enough for some members of the Tigrayan diaspora in South Africa. Giddy Gebrehiwet, one of the protesters, cited opposition to the involvement of the Ethiopian rights agency “because you cannot investigate your own crimes.

(AP Photo)NAIROBI – Eritrea’s government is rejecting as “outrageous lies” a story by The Associated Press in which witnesses describe a massacre of several hundred people carried out by Eritrean soldiers in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel criticized Thursday’s story on the massacre in Ethiopia’s holy city of Axum in a series of Twitter posts on Friday. Gebremeskel has not responded to AP questions throughout the months-long Tigray conflict,AdEritrea's government has not confirmed the presence of reportedly thousands of its soldiers in Tigray. The Tigray region borders Eritrea, and witnesses have described seeing truckloads of loot pass through on their way toward the country. Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive nations, has long been an enemy of the now-fugitive former leaders of the Tigray region, who dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades.

But they were forbidden from burying their dead by the invading Eritrean soldiers. The atrocities of the Tigray conflict have occurred in the shadows. It did not mention Eritrean soldiers. AdEritrean and Ethiopian soldiers had arrived in Axum more than a week earlier, with heavy bombardment. His work remains with his church, where services continue even as he says the Tigray conflict is as fierce as ever.

Ethiopian forces and allied fighters pursue the fugitive former leaders of Tigray who long dominated Ethiopia’s government. Every public and private institution is looted.” The north is occupied by Eritrean soldiers, he said. The woman who left Rama for the U.S. described an uneasy world where Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers both appeared to be in charge. Eritrean soldiers came to her family’s home multiple times to sack it, she said. Ethiopian soldiers manned some checkpoints, she said, and Eritrean soldiers manned others.

FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2020, file photo, refugees who fled the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region arrive from Village 8, the transit center near the Lugdi border crossing, at Umm Rakouba refugee camp in Qadarif, eastern Sudan. The Tigray conflict, which has entered its fourth month, remains largely in the shadows. Abiy also has spoken this week with the French president and German chancellor, whose governments have expressed similar wishes on opening up Tigray. AdAvailable information indicates that Ethiopia’s government now controls 60% to 80% of the territory in Tigray, Lowcock told diplomats. “Eritrean forces are almost everywhere in Tigray,” one man who managed to travel from northern Tigray to the regional capital, Mekele, told The Associated Press this week.

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2020, file photo, refugees who fled the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region arrive on the banks of the Tekeze River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan. The opposition parties say the international community should ensure the immediate withdrawal of fighters including soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, who witnesses say are supporting Ethiopian forces. The opposition parties assert that the hunger is man-made as cattle have been killed and raided, crops burned and homes looted and destroyed. The statement was signed by the Tigray Independence Party, the National Congress of Great Tigray and Salsay Weyane Tigray. They were undertaken to spur “sustained, impartial and unimpeded humanitarian access" to Tigray and to refugees and internally displaced people, he said.

FILE - In this Nov. 21, 2020, file photo, refugees who fled the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region arrive on the banks of the Tekeze River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan. Eritrea has said little publicly about the conflict in Tigray as Ethiopian soldiers fight forces loyal to the now-fugitive Tigray regional leaders who once dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades. The Tigray leaders were marginalized after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, and each side regards the other as illegitimate. Eritrea remains an enemy of the fugitive Tigray leaders after a two-decade border war that ended under Abiy. The situation is “deteriorating every day, every minute,” the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Ato Abera Tola, told reporters on Thursday as Red Cross entities appealed for more financial support.

Pressure is growing on Somalias government amid allegations that Somali soldiers have been sent to fight in neighboring Ethiopias deadly Tigray conflict. Mothers have held rare protests in Somalias capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere, demanding to know the fate of their children who originally were sent to Eritrea for military training. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)MOGADISHU – Pressure is growing on Somalia’s government amid allegations that Somali soldiers have been sent to fight in neighboring Ethiopia’s deadly Tigray conflict. Mothers have held rare protests in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere, demanding to know the fate of their children who originally were sent to Eritrea for military training. “There are no Somali troops requested by the Ethiopian government to fight for them and fight in Tigray,” he said.

(2021 Planet Labs, Inc via AP)NAIROBI – New satellite images of a refugee camp in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region show more than 400 structures have been badly damaged in what a research group believes is the latest “intentional attack” by fighters. We have no information on how many refugees were still in the camp last week,” U.N. refugee agency spokesman Chris Melzer said in an email. We demand access since the refugees are without supplies for two and a half months now and we are extremely concerned. Grandi noted “many reliable reports and firsthand accounts” of abuses including the forced return of refugees to Eritrea. Fighting continues in parts of the Tigray region.

Ethiopia's deadly conflict with its northern Tigray region spilled over the border as several thousand people fled into Sudan, along with soldiers seeking protection, while the Tigray regional leader accused Eritrea of attacking at the request of Ethiopia's federal government. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)NAIROBI – A senior Ethiopian military official has confirmed the presence of security forces from neighboring Eritrea in the deadly conflict in his country’s northern Tigray region, contradicting the Ethiopian government’s denials. The United States last month said it believed Eritrean troops were active in Ethiopia, a “grave development,” as people fleeing the Tigray region alleged that Eritrean forces were involved in the fighting, targeting and abducting Eritrean refugees from camps near the Eritrean border as well as scores of Tigray residents. The involvement of Eritrean forces in a region where nearly 100,000 Eritrean refugees shelter in camps has been a major source of alarm for humanitarian workers and others. Verifying conditions inside Tigray remains challenging as communications return and as Ethiopian authorities detain some journalists or deny their travel to the region.

Tigray refugee children sing and dance inside a tent run by UNICEF for children's activities, in Umm Rakouba refugee camp in Qadarif, eastern Sudan, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020. The U.N, refugee agency said it hadn't been informed in advance of the Eritrean refugees' return. Aid groups say thousands of Eritrean refugees had fled to Addis Ababa and the Tigray capital, Mekele. It was not clear where, but the group also supports the Eritrean refugees. Tigray remains largely sealed off from the world five weeks after fighting erupted between Ethiopia’s government and the Tigray one following a months-long power struggle.

Tigray refugees arrive on the banks of the Tekeze River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. Ethiopian forces over the weekend announced they had “full control” of the Tigray capital, Mekele, a city of a half-million people. “We are extremely concerned about the reports” of aid workers killed, U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said. The U.N. said it and Ethiopia’s government signed a deal to allow unimpeded aid access, at least to parts of the Tigray region now under federal government control. “There are still operational issues of a logistical nature, some of a security nature, that are being worked out,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke said.

Tigrayan women who fled the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, pray during Sunday Mass at a church, near Umm Rakouba refugee camp in Qadarif, eastern Sudan, Nov. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)NAIROBI – The United Nations says food has now run out for the nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea who have been sheltering in camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which has been cut off from the world for nearly a month amid fighting. “The camps will have now run out of food supplies – making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have been issuing since the conflict began nearly a month ago. Communications and transport links to the Tigray region of 6 million people have been severed, and the U.N. and others have pleaded for access to deliver badly needed food, medicines and other supplies. “For almost two decades, Ethiopia has been a hospitable country for Eritrean refugees but now we fear they are caught in the conflict,” Baloch said.

Hospitals and health centers in the Tigray region are running “dangerously low” on supplies to care for the wounded, it added. Food is also running low, the result of the Tigray region being cut off from outside aid for almost a month. The latest explosions came just hours after Abiy declared victory in his government’s fighting against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which has run the northern Tigray region. “We need first and foremost access” to Tigray, Grandi said, adding that his U.N. colleagues in Addis Ababa are in discussions with the government there. But many of the refugees have said they were running from the deadly violence of Ethiopian forces and attacks from the direction of nearby Eritrea.

Axel Bisschop, the agency’s representative in Sudan, told reporters Friday that “nobody at this stage can say exactly how many will come,” as deadly fighting continues between Ethiopian government and Tigray regional government forces. Another crisis is growing inside the sealed-off Tigray region as food and other supplies run desperately low. “This could unravel Ethiopia and also Sudan,” the UNICEF country representative in Sudan, Abdullah Fadil, said of the crisis. Ethiopia’s government has been fighting the Tigray regional forces since a Nov. 4 attack on a military base there. Now, some of those Eritrean refugees have fled again into Sudan, aid workers said.

NAIROBI – A university official says the latest airstrike by Ethiopia’s military has struck the school in the capital of the defiant Tigray region and caused major damage, while the United States says neither side in the conflict is heeding calls for de-escalation. The senior official described Thursday’s airstrike in an email shared with The Associated Press. There was no immediate comment from Ethiopia’s government, which has been fighting the Tigray regional forces since a Nov. 4 attack on a military base there. While Abiy's government rejects urgent international calls for dialogue, a humanitarian disaster is unfolding as food, fuel and medical supplies run desperately short in the Tigray region. Eritrea has remained largely silent while the TPLF accuses it of entering the conflict at Ethiopia's request.

Refugees from the Tigray region of Ethiopia region wait to register at the UNCHR center at Hamdayet, Sudan on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020. At least three rockets appeared to be aimed at the airport in Asmara, hours after the Tigray regional government warned it might attack. There are no indications the airport was struck.”The Tigray regional leader would not say how many missiles remain at his forces’ disposal but said “we have several. The Tigray leader said his government, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, had no communications channel with Eritrea even before the conflict. This is genocide, to destroy Tigray and Tigray people.”Shaken, they described being under attack even as they fled.

NAIROBI – Ethiopia’s deadly conflict with its northern Tigray region spilled over the border Tuesday as several thousand people fled into Sudan, along with soldiers seeking protection, while the Tigray regional leader accused Eritrea of attacking at the request of Ethiopia’s federal government. Ethiopia's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rejected international pleas for dialogue with the Tigray regional leaders, saying there would be no negotiations until the “law enforcement operation” is over. Eritrea, long at bitter odds with the Tigray regional government, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, is more challenging. Several hundred people reportedly have been killed on both the Ethiopian government side and the Tigray regional government side, a diplomat in the capital told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. You need the support of the people.”Aid groups warn humanitarian needs will grow alarmingly as the conflict drags on.