A new round of deadly attacks and forced conscription has begun against ethnic Tigrayans in an area of Ethiopia now controlled by Amhara regional authorities in collaboration with soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, people fleeing over the border to Sudan tell The Associated Press as the yearlong war intensifies. Urgent diplomatic meetings with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael in an attempt to calm the fighting have found a small “window of opportunity" as the rival sides agreed a political solution through dialogue was required, African Union envoy Olesegun Obasanjo said in briefings Monday. The State Department said U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman saw a window to act with Obasanjo and was meeting with him in Ethiopia's capital Monday night. Tigray forces have been approaching Addis Ababa to press the prime minister to step aside, leading Ethiopia’s government to declare a state of emergency last week while the U.S. and other countries urged citizens to leave immediately. The war has killed thousands after political tensions with the Tigray forces who once dominated the national government turned deadly. Those fleeing the western Tigray communities of Adebay and Humera in the past week described warnings from Amhara authorities against supporting the Tigray forces. The accounts confirm warnings by the U.S. and others that Eritrean soldiers remain in the Tigray region, and they indicate that pressure is growing on Tigrayans of mixed heritage who have tried to live quietly amid what the U.S. has alleged as ethnic cleansing in western Tigray. Read: Urgent efforts to calm Ethiopia as war reaches one-year mark As reports grew about the Tigray forces’ momentum, Amhara authorities at a public meeting in Adebay on Oct. 29 warned residents against supporting them, two men who fled to Sudan said. “There are people working for (the Tigray forces). You should give them to us or we will kill you all together,” one who fled, 28-year-old Mawcha Asmelash, recalled authorities saying. Five days later, he said, Amhara militia attacked. “I saw four people being killed on the run,” he said. He and other men hid in the bush for two days, gathering information from local women and trying to judge whether it was safe to return. But the women estimated scores of men had been killed and residents had been forbidden to bury their bodies. The women urged them to flee. Another man who fled Adebay, 36-year-old Berhane Gebremikael, confirmed the public meeting. He said he saw one man killed as he ran from Amhara militia and the Eritrean soldiers, who he said have a camp in the community. “They called it revenge,” he said. He described a perilous situation for Tigrayan residents of Adebay who had remained during the war, with many changing their identity, paying bribes or using mixed heritage for a measure of protection. Berhane, whose mother is Eritrean, now fears he can’t return. “Maybe the worst things will happen in the next days,” he said. “The international community should intervene.” A man who fled to Sudan from the city of Humera, near the Eritrean border, told the AP he had stayed there because of his part-Tigrayan heritage, but last week Amhara authorities “started collecting people. Young men and boys are being forced to join the fighting.” Again, it started with a public warning, 28-year-old Alemu Abraha said. Then Amhara authorities, along with Eritrean soldiers, started visiting homes at night to take people away. His friends were taken, he said, and he believes the men are being sent to the Amhara region, where most fighting has occurred in recent months. Amhara regional spokesman Gizachew Muluneh did not respond to AP questions. Amhara regional officials have asserted that western Tigray is historically their land, and during the war witnesses and humanitarian workers have described scores of thousands of Tigrayans forced from communities there. Read: UN report says Ethiopia’s war marked by ‘extreme brutality’ Meanwhile, reports of mass detentions of Tigrayans continue under the state of emergency. An Ethiopian Orthodox Church official in Addis Ababa, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said dozens of priests, monks, deacons and others had been detained in the capital because of their ethnicity. Ethiopian authorities have said they are detaining people suspected of supporting the Tigray forces. The government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in a statement noted with concern that “arrests appeared to be based on ethnicity” and included the elderly and mothers with children. As the war closes in, Ethiopia’s government insists that life in the capital remains normal. On Sunday, scores of thousands of people rallied in Addis Ababa in a show of support, some carrying signs criticizing the international community, including foreign media. On Monday, AU envoy Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, told the AU Peace and Security Council he saw a window of opportunity after meeting separately with Ethiopia's prime minister and the Tigray leader over the weekend. The rival sides agree “the differences opposing them are political and require political solution through dialogue," he said. The envoy added, however, that “the window of opportunity we have is very little and that time is paramount for any intervention” in the critical situation facing not only Ethiopia but the Horn of Africa at large. He repeated calls for dialogue without preconditions, an immediate cease-fire and immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that envoy Feltman met with the prime minister Friday and then went to neighboring Kenya to meet its president before returning to Ethiopia on Monday to “urgently press the parties to de-escalate the conflict and negotiate.” There was no indication that Feltman, like Obasanjo, went to the Tigray region. Price simply said that “we have engaged with the (Tigray forces) as well.” The prime minister's spokeswoman has called the meeting with Feltman “constructive," with no details.

An airstrike hit a busy market in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray village of Togoga on Tuesday, according to health workers who said soldiers blocked medical teams from traveling to the scene. Dozens of people were killed, they and a former resident said, citing witnesses. Two doctors and a nurse in Tigray’s regional capital, Mekele, told The Associated Press they were unable to confirm how many people were killed, but one doctor said health workers at the scene reported “more than 80 civilian deaths.” The health workers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The alleged airstrike comes amid some of the fiercest fighting in the Tigray region since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces supported by those from neighboring Eritrea pursue Tigray’s former leaders. A spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s prime minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wounded patients being treated at Mekele’s Ayder hospital told health workers that a plane dropped a bomb on Togoga’s marketplace. The six patients included a 2-year-old child with “abdominal trauma” and a 6-year-old, the nurse said. An ambulance carrying a wounded baby to Mekele was blocked for two hours and the baby died on the way, the nurse added. Read:UN: Famine is imminent in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head for the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party and who comes from Togoga, told the AP that one fleeing witness to the attack had counted more than 30 bodies and other witnesses were reporting more than 50 people killed. “It was horrific,” said a staffer with an international aid group who told the AP he had spoken with a colleague and others at the scene. “We don’t know if the jets were coming from Ethiopia or Eritrea. They are still looking for bodies by hand. More than 50 people were killed, maybe more.” On Tuesday afternoon, a convoy of ambulances attempting to reach Togoga, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Mekele, was turned back by soldiers near Tukul, the health workers said. Several more ambulances were turned back later in the day and on Wednesday morning, but one group of medical workers reached the site on Tuesday evening via a different route. Those medical workers were treating 40 wounded people but told colleagues in Mekele that the number of wounded is likely higher as some people fled after the attack. Five of the wounded patients were said to need emergency operations but the health workers were unable to evacuate them. “We have been asking, but until now we didn’t get permission to go, so we don’t know how many people are dead,” said one of the doctors in Mekele. Another doctor said the Red Cross ambulance he was traveling in on Tuesday while trying to reach the scene was shot at twice by Ethiopian soldiers, who held his team for 45 minutes before ordering them back to Mekele. Read: 'People are starving': New exodus in Ethiopia's Tigray area “We are not allowed to go,” he said. “They told us whoever goes, they are helping the troops of the TPLF.” The TPLF refers to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governed Tigray until it was ousted by a federal government offensive in November. The subsequent fighting has killed thousands and forced more than 2 million people from their homes. While the United Nations has said all sides have been accused of abuses, Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers have been repeatedly accused by witnesses of looting and destroying health centers across the Tigray region and denying civilians access to care. This month, humanitarian agencies warned that 350,00 people in Tigray are facing famine. Aid workers have said they have been repeatedly denied access to several parts of the region by soldiers. The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says it has nearly defeated the rebels. But forces loyal to the TPLF recently announced an offensive in parts of Tigray and have claimed a string of victories. A resident in Adigrat, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Mekele, said a group of Tigrayan fighters briefly entered the town on Tuesday, although he said it had since been retaken by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. He said federal police had since been seen beating people in the center of the town. Read:Amnesty report describes Axum massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray “Everybody is staying at home, there is no movement in the town,” he said. Renewed fighting was also reported in Edaga Hamus and Wukro, two towns that sit on the main road to Mekele. The reports came as Ethiopia held federal and regional elections on Monday. The vote was peaceful in most parts of the country, although there was no voting in Tigray. The vote was delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, heightening tensions between the federal government and the TPLF, which went ahead with its own regional election in September.

The leader of Ethiopia’s rebellious Tigray region has confirmed firing missiles at neighboring Eritrea’s capital and is threatening more, marking a huge escalation as the deadly fighting in northern Ethiopia between Tigray forces and the federal government spills across an international border.

The East African nation of Eritrea on Sunday expressed "dismay at this unfriendly act" after the Trump administration included it in the latest six countries to face U.S. visa restrictions.

The Trump administration announced Friday that it was restricting immigrants from six additional countries that officials said failed to meet minimum security standards, as part of an election-year push to further clamp down immigration.