Politics

Rebels from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region captured two strategic towns and were poised to march on Addis Ababa, the capital. An allied rebel force, claiming to represent the Oromos, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, said it had cut roads to Addis Ababa from the south. Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, declared a state of emergency and said Ethiopia would defeat the rebels with “the bones and blood of her children”. Tigrayans in the capital were rounded up and detained.