At least 10 people were killed on Wednesday on the second day of airstrikes against Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, a hospital official said, in attacks that came after authorities there expressed readiness for a cease-fire.

Tigrayan forces have been battling the Ethiopian military and its allies since late 2020 with a cease-fire earlier this year shattered last month as fighting flared again.

The conflict has killed thousands, uprooted tens of thousands, shattered infrastructure and worsened hunger in the already impoverished region.

Five of the victims died en route to Mekelle's Ayder Referral Hospital, said the hospital's CEO, Kibrom Gebreselassie. The others died at the scene of the drone strike in the Midre Genet neighborhood, Kibrom said, citing the city's emergency coordinator.

Ethiopian military spokesperson Colonel Getnet Adane and government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which governs Tigray, said on Sunday it was ready for a further truce and would accept an African Union-led peace process. Ethiopia's government has not yet responded to the offer.

A surgeon at Ayder, Fasika Amdeslasie, said most of Wednesday's victims were hit in a second strike after people had gathered to assist victims of a first hit.

Kibrom said the hospital was struggling to save the wounded because of supply shortages caused by nearly two years of war.

"There is no oxygen for the operation. I don't know what to do. Am I to lose every salvageable victim because there is no oxygen or medicine?" he said.

Renewed violence

The reported attack followed a drone strike on Tuesday on Mekelle University, which the TPLF said caused injuries and property damage.

Dimtsi Weyane, a TPLF-affiliated TV network broadcasting in Tigray, said its station was also hit on Tuesday, forcing it off the air and "causing heavy human and material damage."

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government has not commented on this week's reported bombings.

Tigray has been hit by several airstrikes since fighting resumed in late August between government forces and their allies and TPLF rebels in northern Ethiopia.

The return to combat shattered a March truce and dashed hopes of peacefully resolving the war, which has killed untold numbers of civilians and triggered a humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.

Both sides have accused the other of firing first, and fighting has spread from around southern Tigray to other fronts farther north and west, while also drawing in Eritrean troops who backed Ethiopian forces during the early phase of the war.

TPLF military boss Tadesse Worede on Tuesday said "Eritrean forces are in Sheraro," a town in northwestern Tigray, where the rebels said they were resisting a major offensive by Ethiopia and Eritrean troops launched earlier this month.

Cease-fire offer

On Sunday, the TPLF said it was ready for a cease-fire and would accept a peace process led by the African Union (AU), removing an obstacle to negotiations with Abiy's government.

The international community has urged the warring sides to seize the opportunity for peace, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat, and the East African bloc IGAD welcoming the offer by "the regional government of Tigray" to hold talks.

Frantic diplomatic efforts are underway to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict, with the new U.S. envoy to the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer, extending his visit to Ethiopia this month.

Addis Ababa is still yet to officially comment on the overture by Tigrayan authorities, which dominated national politics for nearly three decades until Abiy came to power in 2018.

Abiy's government has declared the TPLF a terrorist group and considers its claim to authority in Tigray illegitimate.

In March, the U.N. said at least 304 civilians had been killed in the three months prior in airstrikes "apparently carried out by the Ethiopian Air Force."

The U.N. human rights office has documented aerial bombardments and drone strikes on refugee camps, a hotel and a market.

It has warned that disproportionate attacks against non-military targets could amount to war crimes.

The government has accused the TPLF of staging civilian deaths from airstrikes to manufacture outrage and insists it only targets military sites.

Abiy, a Nobel Peace laureate, sent troops into Tigray in November 2020 to topple the TPLF in response to what he said were attacks on federal army camps.

But the TPLF recaptured most of Tigray in a surprise comeback in June 2021.

It then expanded into the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara before the fighting reached a stalemate.