>> Declan Walsh, The New York Times
Published: 12 Jul 2021 12:02 PM BdST
Updated: 12 Jul 2021 12:02 PM BdST
Tigray Defense Force fighters rest south of the Ethiopian city of Mekelle in the country’s Tigray region, June 29, 2021. A scrappy force of local Tigrayan recruits scored a cascade of battlefield victories against the Ethiopian military, one of Africa’s strongest. (Finbarr O'Reilly/The New York Times)
The Tigrayan fighters whooped, whistled and pointed excitedly to a puff of smoke in the sky where an Ethiopian military cargo plane trundling over the village minutes earlier had been struck by a missile.
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Smoke turned to flames as the stricken aircraft broke in two and hurtled toward the ground. Later, in a stony field strewn with smoking wreckage, villagers picked through twisted metal and body parts. For the Tigrayan fighters, it was a sign.