Ethiopia's army says it has repelled attacks by Tigrayan forces and their allies in the north of the country, in its first public statement since fighting resumed on Wednesday. The military said the hostilities began in an area of the Amhara region close to the border with Tigray, where its soldiers inflicted heavy casualties and seized weapons.
The claims could not be independently verified. The army later announced that 272 TPLF fighters had died and 260 had been injured in recent clashes in the north. The Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, has not commented on the military's account, and the BBC said it had been unable to verify the claims independently.
The fighting follows months of increasing tension between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and the Tigray authorities. The two sides fought a war from 2020 to 2022 that ended with an African Union-brokered peace deal. The AU's mediator estimated that some 600,000 people died during that conflict, which drove the region close to famine.
On Wednesday, TPLF forces took control of the airports in Mekelle, Axum and Shire from federal police. Residents of Mekelle, Tigray's main city, told the BBC that local forces had assumed control of the city's airport from the national police early that day. Ethiopian Airlines subsequently cancelled all flights to Tigray.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of TPLF attacks in the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara. A humanitarian source in Afar told AFP on Thursday that Tigrayan forces had used heavy artillery while trying to take the town of Yallo, near the Tigray border.
The military confrontation has reached the northern area of Welk in Amhara, around the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Lalibela. Fighting there has disrupted air travel to Lalibela. NetBlocks, which monitors internet access, detected a network outage in northern Ethiopia on Friday as the fighting intensified.
Afar carries particular importance for Ethiopia's supply routes. The offensive there is likely intended to cut off supplies from Djibouti, which handles almost all of Ethiopia's international trade cargo, including fuel. The extent of any disruption to those lines remains unclear.
The TPLF has portrayed the latest events as a wider campaign against the federal government. Its vice-president, Amanuel Assefa, told AFP: 'We are in the situation of full-blown war now'.
On Sunday, the TPLF announced a seven-group coalition, the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, with six other armed groups. The alliance said it aimed to oust the government and challenged the 2022 Pretoria Agreement.
The African Union has called for 'immediate de-escalation'. Its appeal comes as key questions remain unresolved, including the number of casualties, the scale of the TPLF and allied operations, and the effect of the renewed fighting on civilians and essential infrastructure.
The previous war's peace agreement brought an end to open conflict, though the months of tension that preceded this week's fighting showed how much remained unsettled. The airport seizures, fighting in multiple northern regions and pressure on routes through Afar now place that agreement under renewed strain.
Comments (0)