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Ethiopian forces have captured two villages from rebel forces in the northern region of Tigray, the government said, as fighting continues to escalate into a two-week war that has sparked a growing humanitarian emergency.
A government statement said on Friday that Ethiopian troops seized the cities of Axum and Adwa.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have died in the conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebels and the central government, and tens of thousands of refugees have fled the fighting in Tigray.
The conflict erupted two weeks ago after what Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government called a TPLF attack on the army stationed in the region.
The government said its forces are now advancing towards the city of Adigrat, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray and home to about half a million people.
“Many fighters from the junta have surrendered,” the statement said, referring to the TPLF.
It has been impossible to verify the claims of all parties because telephone lines and Internet links to Tigray have been cut since the conflict began.
Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Addis Ababa, said the capture of Axum and Adwa would be important achievements for the Abiy-led government.
“These two cities are a huge part of the history of this country,” Adow said.
Adow added that Axum was part of the Axumite Kingdom, of which many Ethiopians are “very proud”, while Adwa was the site of an Ethiopian war victory over the Italians in 1839.
Ethiopian government forces are making their way to Mekelle from various directions.
Meanwhile, in a televised speech on Friday, Getachew Reda, the spokesman for the Tigray president, said his fighters have inflicted “increasing casualties” in Raya, south of Mekelle.
Tigrayan fighters also “eliminated enemy forces” from Mehoni in the south and Zalambessa in the northeast, Tigrayan TV said.
Reda also claimed responsibility for a rocket attack early Friday at an airport in a neighboring region.
The rocket attack on Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region, raised concerns that the conflict could escalate into a broader war.
Reda said it was in retaliation for the bombings launched from there.
“We will continue to target any airport that has been used to carry out an attack on Tigray,” he said.
The Amhara government communications office said the rockets caused no damage.
Humanitarian corridors
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday called for the opening of humanitarian corridors to help civilians caught up in the fighting in the Tigray region, noting that authorities had so far rejected mediation attempts.
“We are very concerned about the situation in Ethiopia,” the secretary-general told reporters in New York, warning of a “dramatic humanitarian impact,” including in neighboring Sudan.
“We have been calling for full respect for international humanitarian law and also for the opening of humanitarian corridors and the truces that may be necessary for humanitarian aid to be delivered in conflict zones,” he said, without specifying where those corridors could reach. be located.
The UN said it was making plans for up to 200,000 refugees fleeing to neighboring Sudan.
Axel Bisschop of the UN refugee agency UNHCR told a briefing in Geneva that 31,000 refugees had already arrived in Sudan, surpassing a contingency plan for 20,000.
“The new planning figure is around 200,000,” Bisschop said.
The UNICEF representative in Sudan, Abdullah Fadil, worried about the effect in Sudan, which is already home to a million refugees from other African wars.
“Our greatest concern is that if we do not act quickly with the necessary resources … this could unravel not only Ethiopia but also Sudan,” he said in the same report.
Ethiopia, a federation of 10 ethnic regions, was dominated by Tigrayans for decades in a ruling coalition led by the TPLF, until Abiy, who is of Amhara and Oromo descent, took power two years ago. He says his goal is to share authority more fairly.
The TPLF accuses him of pursuing revenge against former officials.
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