The Front for the Liberation of Tigray, a rebel organization in Ethiopia, announced yesterday (Monday) the occupation of two key towns on one of the main roads in the country, leading to the capital Addis Ababa.
According to reports, the towns that fell to the rebels were Kombulcha and Desay.
Kombulcha sits on a critical crossroads and the A.2 motorway, which leads south to the capital Addis Ababa.
Also in the town is an airport with a runway that is paved and wide that allows military planes to land.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government, Lagsa Thulo, told foreign media that the rebels had assembled a group of more than a hundred young people and shot them dead after the fall of Kombulcha.
The government's official news agency issued a brief statement saying: "Terrorist Front Front terrorists have killed hundreds of teenagers and young people in Kombulcha."
An Ethiopian army tank destroyed in battle,
A spokesman for the Tigray Liberation Front, Getacho Rada, told the Reuters news agency that no executions had taken place in Kombulca and that the town had fallen without a fight and no casualties had been reported from either side during the occupation.
Foreign media could not confirm or refute the parties' claims because the entry of journalists into the conflict zones was forbidden and the government shut down the media services to the war zones so that independent reporting from the region is not possible.
The conquest of the road junction in Kumbulcha is a significant achievement for the provocative forces that have been waging a bloody war for over a year against the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Nobel Laureate Abbey Ahmad.
During the war, which also involved Eritrean army forces fighting alongside the Ethiopian government, rebel forces managed to turn a defeat on the battlefield into victory and liberated the capital of the Tigray region, Mekla, in July.
Alongside military maneuvers, both sides claimed severe massacres by the other side and an influx of refugees from the war zones recounted atrocities perpetrated by both warring parties.
Handcuffed and washed bodies washed up in the river off the coast of neighboring Sudan to the north confirmed the suspicion that wholesale executions are being carried out by both warring parties.