The Ethiopian government on Wednesday announced that three members of the Tigray region’s former ruling party, including former Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, were killed by the military.

According to Reuters, the government’s task force for the crisis in Tigray said in a Twitter post that the three Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) officials were killed, and five other party members were captured after they refused to surrender to the military.

After nearly a month of fighting in the Tigray region, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared government victory in November last year.

Reports by the Ethiopian state-run TV, said the military announced it had killed 15 members of the TPLF and captured eight others, including Sebhat Nega, a founding member of the TPLF.

Seyoum served as Ethiopia’s foreign minister from 1991 to 2010. He was also a mediator of South Sudan's 2015 peace agreement.

Thousands of people are believed to have died in the battles since early November. The United Nations reports that fighting continues in some parts of the region, while more than 2 million people need aid.

Due to a lack of access to the area, the claims cannot be independently verified.