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Abiy launched the offensive last November against the ruling Tigray party, which he accused of attacking federal army camps and seeking to destabilize the country.
Within weeks, troops entered the regional capital of Mekele and Abiy announced that military operations were “completed.”
But the government continues to account for TPLF leaders killed in shootings while the United Nations reports that “insecurity” hampers access to aid.
And in recent weeks, satellite imagery, public statements by military and civilian officials in Tigray, and scattered accounts by residents have added to evidence of a conflict that is largely unfolding in the shadows.
A communications blackout across much of Tigray means that confirmable details remain scarce.
Region still ‘volatile’
When federal forces arrived in Mekele in late November, they encountered little resistance as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) leadership appeared to have already fled.
And a triumphant Abiy claimed that no civilians had died during the capture of the Tigrayan cities.
However, doctors at a Mekele hospital told a different story, saying that at least 20 civilians were killed in the shelling.
They provided AFP with photos of survivors with horrific injuries, including missing limbs and exposed internal organs.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank says thousands have died so far and tens of thousands of refugees have crossed the border into neighboring Sudan.
Federal officials have described the subsequent clashes as minor operations targeting Tigrayan leaders such as former regional president Debretsion Gebremichael, who has been out of touch for more than a month.
But a UN humanitarian assessment dated January 6 said Tigray remained “volatile,” with “localized fighting.”
The UN is particularly concerned about what happened in two camps hosting more than 30,000 Eritrean refugees that are inaccessible.
Senior officials have repeatedly sounded the alarm over reports of killings, kidnappings and forced repatriations from the camps back to neighboring Eritrea.
The alleged presence of heavy-handed and isolated Eritrean regime soldiers in Tigray has been a highly controversial aspect of the conflict.
Five aid workers have been confirmed dead in one of the camps, known as Hitsats.
“Reports of additional military incursions in the past 10 days are consistent with open source satellite imagery showing new fires and other signs of destruction in the two camps,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said Thursday in a statement.
“These are concrete indications of significant violations of international law.”
The role of Eritrea
Ethiopia has strongly denied that Eritrean soldiers played an active role in the fighting, contradicting eyewitness accounts.
But in December, the US State Department said it was “aware of credible reports about Eritrea’s military involvement in Tigray” and called for the withdrawal of Eritrean troops.
Eritrea fought a brutal border war with Ethiopia in 1998-2000, when the TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.
Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 in large part for initiating a rapprochement with Eritrea, whose President Isaias Afwerki and the TPLF remain staunch enemies.
In late December, a high-ranking member of the Ethiopian army told a meeting of Mekele residents that Eritrean troops had entered Tigray, but insisted they were “unwanted.”
Awet Woldemichael, a Horn of Africa security expert at Queen’s University in Canada, said this explanation was dubious.
“Eritrea’s involvement in the Tigray war is not considered a violation of Ethiopia, and the international community is not concerned about that, precisely because the Ethiopian government invited it,” he said.
Hunger warnings
Perhaps the most immediate concern for Tigray’s estimated population of six million is humanitarian access.
So far “the number of people served is extremely low compared to the number of people we estimate to be in need of vital assistance, around 2.3 million people,” said Saviano Abreu, spokesman for the UN humanitarian coordination office.
The government’s Tigray Emergency Coordination Center estimates the number of people in need of food assistance at 4.5 million and says 2.2 million have been displaced.
Officials in the new interim administration have warned of widespread hunger if food aid does not arrive soon, according to humanitarian officials briefed on their assessments.
A letter from a Catholic church official in the city of Adigrat, dated January 5 and seen by AFP, says residents have been left without food, water and medicine and are living without electricity and other basic services.
“It is a daily reality to hear people die from the consequences of fighting, lack of food, insulin and other basic medicines,” the letter says.
Government statements on the conflict have recently focused on TPLF leaders who have been killed or captured.
William Davison, an Ethiopian analyst at ICG, said this could complicate the interim administration’s efforts to win over the Tigrayans, raising questions about Abiy’s long-term strategy.
“From the beginning of the conflict,” Davison said, “the biggest challenge for the federal government has been how to defeat the Tigray leadership without alienating the people of Tigray.”
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