ADDIS ABABA — Fighting erupted between government forces and
Tigrayan rebels in northern
Ethiopia on Wednesday, shattering a five-month truce and dealing a blow to
peace talks.
اضافة اعلان
Within hours,
reports of fresh offensives were followed by Ethiopia’s air force announcing it
had downed a plane carrying weapons for the
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that encroached on the country’s airspace via neighboring Sudan.
The government
and the Tigray rebels have accused each other of undermining efforts to
peacefully resolve the brutal 21-month war in Africa’s second most populous
nation, and traded blame over who was responsible for returning to combat.
UN chief Antonio
Guterres said he was “deeply shocked” by the renewed fighting and appealed for
an “immediate cessation of hostilities and for the resumption of peace talks”.
The TPLF said
government forces and their allies had launched a “large scale” offensive
towards southern Tigray early Wednesday after a months-long lull in fighting.
But the
Government Communication Service accused the TPLF of striking first, saying its
action had “destroyed the truce”.
“Disregarding
the numerous peace options presented by the Ethiopian government, the armed
wing of the terror group TPLF, pushing with its recent provocations starting
5am (2am GMT) today committed an attack” around southern Tigray, it said in a
statement.
The rival claims
could not be independently verified as access to northern Ethiopia is
restricted, but there were reports of fighting around southern Tigray in areas
bordering the Amhara and Afar regions.
“They launched
the offensive early this morning around 5am local time. We are defending our
positions,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP in Nairobi in a brief
message.
He said on
Twitter that the “large-scale” offensive was launched “against our positions in
the southern front” by the Ethiopian army and special forces and militias from
neighboring Amhara.
‘Violated our
airspace’
The air force said Wednesday it had shot down a plane “believed to be a
property of historical enemies who want
Ethiopia’s weakness”.
“The airplane
which violated our airspace from
Sudan ... and aimed to supply weapons to the
terror group was shot down by our heroic air force,” the Ethiopian News Agency
quoted armed forces Major General Tesfaye Ayalew as saying.
The date of the
incident, the type of aircraft and how it was downed were not detailed.
A truce forged
in March paused fighting in a war that first began in November 2020, allowing a
resumption of some international aid to war-stricken Tigray after a three-month
break.
Prime Minister
Abiy Ahmed’s government and the TPLF have been locked in a war of words in
recent weeks over possible peace talks.
The two sides
disagree on who should lead negotiations, and the TPLF also insists basic
services must be restored to Tigray’s six million people before dialogue can
begin.
Abiy’s
government says any negotiations must be brokered by the African Union’s Horn
of Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, who is leading the international push for
peace, but the rebels want outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to mediate.
William Davison,
senior Ethiopia analyst for the
International Crisis Group think tank, urged
all parties to cease fighting to avert “a return to full-blown war”.
“This serious
breach of the truce agreed earlier this year demonstrates the need for the two
parties to arrange unconditional face-to-face negotiations as soon as these
hostilities cease,” Davison said in a statement.
“It is also a
deafening warning to the key international and regional actors that they must
immediately ensure peace talks actually occur.”
‘Enough of this
war’
The conflict has killed untold numbers of people, with widespread
reports of atrocities including mass killings and sexual violence.
Millions of
people need humanitarian assistance in Tigray, the country’s northernmost region,
as well as Afar and Amhara.
The
UN’s World Food Program said last week that nearly half the population in Tigray is
suffering from a severe lack of food and that rates of malnutrition had
“skyrocketed”.
The dire
assessment came despite the resumption of desperately needed international aid
convoys to Tigray’s capital Mekele in April, with fuel shortages making it
difficult to distribute supplies.
Tigray is
largely cut off from the rest of Ethiopia, without basic services such as
electricity, communications and banking.
Abiy sent troops
into Tigray in November 2020 to topple the TPLF after months of seething
tensions with the party that had dominated Ethiopian politics for three
decades.
The
2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner said the move came in response to rebel attacks on army
camps.
The TPLF mounted
a comeback, recapturing Tigray and expanding into Afar and Amhara, before the
war reached a stalemate.
Last Wednesday,
an Ethiopian government committee tasked with looking into negotiations had
called for a formal ceasefire as part of a proposal it planned to submit to the
AU.
“If you can’t
win, then you’ve got to sit down and talk,” Abiy said Sunday in remarks carried
on state media.
“My advice is ... let’s
have enough of (this) war.”
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
