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Elements of the Amhara militia, fighting alongside federal forces against the northern region of Tigray
Ethiopian authorities said Tuesday that they will not hold peace talks in the northern Tigray region with the provincial government unless all military equipment is destroyed, federal officials are released and leaders of the region are arrested.
This came after a federal government spokesman confirmed that the Ethiopian Army Northern Command compound in the capital of the troubled Tigray region fell into the hands of local forces.
“In Mekele, local forces managed to subjugate the entire complex because there were not enough weapons and personnel there,” said Radwan Hussain, spokesman for the newly established government emergency fighting force in Tigray.
Hussein added that federal forces were forced to retreat across the border into Eritrea before regrouping and returning to fight local forces.
Earlier in the day, the leader of the Ethiopian Tigray region, Depreciation Gebremichael, accused Eritrea of sending its soldiers across the border and attacking local forces to support a federal government military attack on the restless state of the north.
Gebremichael said Eritrean soldiers attacked the villages of Humera and Badme, which belong to the region.
On Tuesday, however, the Eritrean government denied the allegations. “This is an internal conflict. We are not part of it,” said Othman Saleh Mohamed, the government of Eritrea, in a statement to the media by telephone.
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“Since yesterday, the army of the Eritrean leader, Isaias Afwerki, crossed the country’s borders and attacked us,” Gebremichael said, in a statement broadcast on local Ethiopian television, adding: “They were attacking us with heavy weapons throughout the region. of Hamira “.
There was no immediate reaction from the Eritrean government to these accusations, although its foreign minister told the media earlier this week that his country’s soldiers did not cross the border into Ethiopia.
This came after the Ethiopian federal government led by Abiy Ahmed launched an attack on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which rules the state of more than 9 million people, accused of attacking a military base last week.
Abi Ahmed said that the military operation is progressing as planned.
Diplomats say Abiy Ahmed believes he can militarily repress the Tigrayan leadership.
The Tigrayans say the Abe government persecutes them, discriminates against them and acts arbitrarily to postpone national elections.
Earlier, Ethiopian official media said that federal forces had seized Hamira airport and the road that runs from Hamira town to the border with Sudan.
Hundreds of people have been killed during Ethiopian government airstrikes in the region, and some fear the country will plunge into civil war due to intense hostility between the Tigrayans and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who hails from the more Oromo tribes large of Ethiopia.
And military and security sources in Amhara said that 500 Tigrayans and hundreds also from the national army were killed.
Abiyen Seyoum, a spokesperson for Abiy Ahmed, denied suggestions by some diplomats that he is ignoring mediation efforts and jeopardizing stability in the impoverished and troubled Horn of Africa.
She said: “Ethiopia is a sovereign state and ultimately its government will make decisions that are in the long-term interest of the state and its people.”
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A farmer and fighter from Tigray, protects his land near the village of Tikeldenge, northwest of Gondar, Ethiopia.
The African Union called for a ceasefire in the Tigray region.
“Federation President Musa Faki Muhammad urges all parties to immediately stop the fighting, respect human rights and ensure the protection of civilians,” he said in a statement.
An Ethiopian government official said on Tuesday that thousands of Ethiopians fleeing the conflict in the northern Tigray region had crossed the western border into neighboring Sudan.
The head of the Sudanese refugee commission in the border town of Kassala, Al-Sir Khaled, told the media that “almost 3,000 refugees have crossed the border.”
Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace agreement two years ago, but the Afewerki government remains hostile to the Tigray leadership after its role in the devastating war of 1998-2000.
