Ethiopia will hold legislative and regional elections on June 5 next year, the electoral commission said Friday after polls scheduled for 2020 were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ethiopia's military killed 42 people allegedly among those responsible for massacring more than 100 civilians in a troubled western part of the country, local officials said Thursday.

Ethiopia on Friday offered a reward in exchange for information that could help locate leaders of the Tigray region's ruling party, who have been the target of a major military offensive.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced the military campaign against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on November 4, saying it came in response to TPLF-orchestrated attacks on federal army camps.

Tesfaye Berhe looked on with worry as his farmhands stripped leaves from sorghum stalks dried brown by the blaring sun, wondering how he could salvage a harvest disrupted by heavy fighting in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.

The European Union is postponing nearly 90 million euros in budget support payments to Ethiopia because of the conflict in the northern Tigray region, according to an internal document seen by AFP.

The first international aid convoy arrived Saturday in the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region since fighting broke out more than a month ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Seven Red Cross trucks brought medicines and medical equipment for 400 wounded as well as relief supplies "to fortify paralysed health care facilities" the Geneva-based ICRC said.

Two international aid agencies on Friday said four staff members were killed during last month's fighting in Ethiopia's troubled northern Tigray region.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Monday said efforts were under way to restore order in Tigray, where doctors and humanitarian workers say fighting and lawlessness were hindering aid delivery to desperate civilians.

Ethiopia has granted the United Nations full access to deliver aid to the northern region of Tigray, following weeks of lobbying amid military operations there, according to an agreement seen Wednesday by AFP.

Sudan needs $150 million in aid to cope with the flood of Ethiopian refugees crossing its border from conflict-stricken Tigray, the UN refugee agency chief said Saturday during a visit to a camp.