The People’s Liberation Front of the Tiger (TPLF) claims to have been forced to continue hostilities in the face of government attacks.
Le Monde with AFP
The rebels of the Ethiopian Tiger Region stated on Tuesday, January 25 to have been “forced” to take back the fighting in the neighboring region of AFAR, a few weeks after a decline in their fief that had sparked hopes for peace.
“Since yesterday morning [24 January], we have been forced to take strong measures to neutralize the threat posed by” overflowing forces in Afar, said in a statement the People’s Liberation Front of the Tiger (TPLF) , which fights the Ethiopian army for more than fourteen months. “Tiger’s army does not intend to stay long in Afar or want to see the conflict deteriorate even more,” adds the text.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent in November 2020 the Federal Army to Tigray to displace the regional authorities from the TPLF. In 2021, the fights were extended to the neighboring regions of the Amhara and Afar, which closer to Addis Ababa.
In December, the rebels announced their withdrawal from these two regions and withdraws them to the Tiger, after an offensive of government forces. This decline had aroused the hope of concrete progress towards the end of the fighting, after the death of several thousand people and the stagnation of a deep humanitarian crisis.
Humanitarian aid blocked
But in his statement from Tuesday, the TPLF asserts that Afar-based government forces have intensified attacks against its positions in recent days. The rebels add that the apparent objective of these attacks was to “hinder humanitarian operations” and trigger a “serious security crisis” in the Tyginal capital Mekele, located about 50 kilometers from the border with AFAR.
After the Tigern fold, Addis Ababa had announced that it would not continue the rebels inside the region. The latter, however, was affected by air strikes, including drones, in recent weeks, according to residents and humanitarian workers.
Monday night, the spokesman of the government, Legesse Tulu, said that the rebels had “attacked” several sites, including the city of Abala located on the border between the two regions, “cutting the main axis for the ‘humanitarian aid “. He also stated that tens of thousands of people had been displaced in recent days and that there were “no government forces in the area”.
The TPLF stated Tuesday to fight an entity named “Red Sea Force” as well as Eritrean soldiers, Allied to Addis Ababa since the beginning of the conflict.
The road from the Afar capital will sow to the Tykne Capital Mekele is currently the only access to the Tiger, where hundreds of thousands of people live in conditions close to famine according to the UN. Tuesday, humanitarian sources said that trucks carrying food aid were blocked at a control station in Afar.
Last week, the UN stated that food distributions had reached the lowest level ever seen in Tigi. AFP investigated in September on deaths resulting from famine. In November, the former title authorities claimed that nearly 200 children died of hunger in hospitals across the region.