Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Monday vowed to crush rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) whom government forces have been battling for the last year.
“We will repel them with full force,” Abiy said in a public broadcast address to lawmakers.
“The challenges are many… but I can tell you for sure, without a doubt, we will score a comprehensive victory,” said the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winning politician. Abiy told countrymen and fellow lawmakers, “dying for Ethiopia is a duty (for) all of us” as he urged citizens to take up any weapons available in the fight against the TPLF.
Abiy’s announcement came one year into a conflict in the northern region that has so far cast some 400,000 people into famine, killed thousands of civilians and forced over 2.5 million Ethiopians to flee their homes.
Why did Ethiopia send troops to Tigray?
Abiy sent federal forces into Tigray in November 2020, promising to swiftly put down what he said were attacks against army camps in the region. Yet the TPLF, which controlled Ethiopian politics for three decades before Aibiy came to power in 2018, had gained control of most of the region by late June as fighting spread to the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara.
Monday’s vow of victory came as TPLF leaders claimed to have captured Kombolcha and Dessie, two strategically important cities along the highway some 375 kilometers (235 miles) north of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Neither rebel claims of capturing the cities, nor that government forces had carried out airstrikes in the region, could be confirmed Monday as large swaths of the area remain under a communications blackout.
Global concern
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield voiced alarm at the spreading violence and called on both sides to “begin ceasefire negotiations without preconditions.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted: “Continued fighting prolongs the dire humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday said it was critical that fighting cease and a humanitarian blockade be lifted immediately.
Communications blackout makes claims impossible to verify
The capturing of Kombolcha and Dessie would mark a major advance for the TPLF, which claims it has no “other motive than breaking the deadly siege” on Tigray. Its advances have also raised concern that it intends to march to the capital, something rebel spokesman Getachew Reda vehemently denied.
Getachew denied government claims that the TPLF had executed a group of 100 young men in Kombolcha, saying the accusation was “absolutely false.”
The TPLF also announced that it had joined forces with fighters from Oromiya — Ethiopia’s most populous region — who are also fighting the central government. The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) is a banned armed splinter group of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) opposition party. The Oromo are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group and many of their political leaders are currently behind bars.
“We have linked up with the OLF/OLA and if achieving our objectives in Tigray will require that we march to Addis Ababa, we will. But we are not saying we are marching to Addis Ababa,” said Getachew Reda.
The OLA claim to have captured the town of Kemissie, south of Kombolcha, but this claim, too, could not be verified as residents claimed it was still in government hands but reported hearing gunfire.
In the capital, Ethiopian security forces arrested numerous people from Tigray on Monday, as Prime Minister Abiy accused unspecified foreigners of supporting the TPLF.
js/jsi (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Ethiopian PM Abiy vows to crush Tigray rebels
Source: Pinoy Pop News
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