NAIROBI — The
African Union (AU) on Sunday
called for an unconditional ceasefire in northern Ethiopia and urged the
warring parties to “recommit” to peace talks, as violence intensifies in the
Tigray region.
اضافة اعلان
The city of Shire in northwest Tigray has been
bombarded for days in a joint offensive by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops, with
civilian casualties reported in the push against rebels from the war-torn
region.
UN chief
Antonio Guterres has joined the US and
other Western powers in voicing alarm over the worsening violence and its toll
on civilians, and calling for both sides to settle “this catastrophic
conflict”.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, and the
Tigrayan authorities, have accepted an AU invitation to talk, but negotiations
scheduled to start last weekend in South Africa failed to materialize and no
new date has been announced.
AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed
“grave concern” about the upsurge in violence and called for “an immediate,
unconditional ceasefire and the resumption of humanitarian services” into areas
cut off by the fighting.
“The chairperson urges the parties to recommit to
dialogue as per their agreement to direct talks to be convened in South Africa
by a high-level team led by the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa,
and supported by the international community,” he said in a statement issued
Sunday, but dated Saturday.
A government spokesman did not respond to a request
for comment when contacted by AFP.
Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF), welcomed the AU statement “in light of the extremely
alarming humanitarian crisis unfolding as a result of the campaign by the
Eritrean army and its Ethiopian allies”.
Talks were to be mediated by the bloc’s Horn of
Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa’s former deputy president Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka, and former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.
Diplomats suggested logistical issues were partly to
blame for the much-anticipated meeting not going ahead.
Aid worker killed
International alarm over the
latest fighting came as US special envoy Mike Hammer arrived in
Addis Ababa to
push for a peaceful resolution to nearly two years of war.
Fighting resumed in August after a five-month lull,
dimming hopes of settling a conflict that has killed untold numbers of
civilians, and been marked by atrocities by all sides.
“Intensively working with the AU and other partners
to launch an AU-led peace process in the coming days with the priority of
achieving an immediate cessation of hostilities,” the US State Department’s
Africa Bureau posted on Twitter on Sunday.
The return to war halted desperately-needed aid into
Tigray, where the UN says millions have fled their homes, and hundreds of
thousands are close to famine.
The
International Rescue Committee (IRC), an aid
organization delivering relief to Tigray, announced on Saturday that one of its
staff was among three civilians killed in an attack in Shire, a city of 100,000
inhabitants.
The
World Food Program (WFP) on Sunday said it
received reports of Friday’s attack near where the IRC was distributing food
“to WFP beneficiaries, including vulnerable mothers and children”.
“WFP condemns any deliberate targeting of humanitarian
activities and strongly calls on all parties to the conflict to respect and
protect humanitarian relief operations and personnel, in line with their
obligations under international humanitarian law,” a WFP spokesperson in
Ethiopia told AFP in a statement.
Shire had been “subjected to continuous heavy
artillery and air strikes all this week” and civilians have been fleeing, a
humanitarian worker in the city told AFP on condition of anonymity.
‘Indiscriminate attacks’
US aid chief Samantha Power
on Sunday said “the risk of additional atrocities and loss of life is
intensifying, particularly around Shire”.
“Recent indiscriminate attacks by the Ethiopian
National Defense Forces and Eritrean Defense Forces in Shire, and reports that
Eritrean forces may soon take control of civilian population centers, are
gravely concerning,” Power wrote on Twitter.
Eritrea sided with
Ethiopia when war began in
November 2020 after Abiy accused the TPLF of attacks on army camps.
Eritrea is a historic enemy of the TPLF, which
dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition until Abiy took power in 2018, and its
forces have been accused of mass rape and murder in Tigray.
The re-entry of Eritrea into the conflict has “made
matters significantly worse” and they must leave Ethiopia, said Hammer.
Eritrea says it is being “scapegoated” and has
accused the US and others of turning a blind eye to TPLF atrocities.
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