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ADDIS ABABA / NAIROBI (Reuters) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Saturday that military operations in the troubled Tigray region are complete and that federal troops control the regional capital, a major development in a three-week war. that has shaken the Horn of Africa.
The Abiy government has been trying to quell a rebellion by a powerful ethnic faction that dominated the central government for decades before he came to power in 2018. Thousands of people are believed to have been killed and nearly 44,000 have fled to Sudan, in a conflict. that has cast doubt on whether Abiy can hold rebellious ethnic groups together in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country.
“I am pleased to share that we have completed and ceased military operations in the Tigray region,” the prime minister said in a tweet. Less than an hour earlier, he said in a statement: “The federal government now has full control of the city of Mekelle.”
However, the leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose forces have been fighting Ethiopian troops, said the group will not surrender.
“Their brutality can only add (to) our determination to fight these invaders to the end,” TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael told Reuters in a text message. When asked by Reuters if that meant his forces would continue to fight, he replied: “Certainly. It is about defending our right to self-determination ”.
There was no immediate response from the government.
In his statement, Abiy said that the federal police would continue to search for and detain TPLF “criminals” and take them to court. The prime minister has called the offensive a public order operation.
It was unclear if any TPLF leaders had surrendered. Debretsion said in another text message that his forces were withdrawing from the surroundings of Mekelle.
Claims from all sides are difficult to verify as telephone and internet links to Tigray have been down and access is strictly controlled since the fighting began on November 4.
Authorities had said earlier on Saturday that government forces were in the final stages of an offensive in the region and would work to protect civilians in Mekelle, a city of 500,000 people.
Abiy said that the army had secured the release of thousands of soldiers from the army’s Northern Command, which is based in Tigray, and that, according to him, they had been taken hostage by the TPLF.
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Federal troops also seized control of the airport, the regional administration office and other key facilities, Abiy said.
The government had given the TPLF an ultimatum that expired on Wednesday to lay down its arms or face an assault on the city.
It was unclear whether federal forces had seized the weapons stocks on Saturday. The government said in the first week of the conflict that one target of its air strikes was military materiel seized by Tigrayan forces.
Diplomats and regional experts have said that a quick military victory may not signal the end of the conflict.
Two diplomats told Reuters that Tigrayan forces were likely to have withdrawn from Mekelle before the government’s push into the city, raising the possibility of a protracted guerrilla war.
The TPLF has a history of guerrilla resistance and used Tigray’s mountainous terrain and foreign borders to its advantage during years of armed struggle in the 1980s against a Marxist government.
The prime minister has so far rejected attempts at mediation. Abiy accuses the Tigray leaders of starting the war by attacking federal troops at a base in Tigray. The TPLF says the attack was a preemptive strike.
NO WORDS ABOUT VICTIMS
Abiy did not mention in his remarks whether there were casualties in the offensive to capture Mekelle.
Human rights groups have been concerned that an assault on the city could result in significant civilian casualties.
The prime minister’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, had said early Saturday: “The safety of the Ethiopians in the Mekelle and Tigray region remains a priority for the federal government.”
TPLF leader Debretsion told Reuters in text messages earlier Saturday that Mekelle was under “heavy bombardment.”
Billene said: “The Ethiopian National Defense Forces are not tasked with bombing their own city and its people. Mekelle remains one of Ethiopia’s key cities and efforts to bring the criminal cabal to justice will not involve discriminatory ‘bombing’ as alluded to by the TPLF and its propagandists. “
Debretsion also accused the military from neighboring Eritrea of crossing the border and storming refugee camps in Tigray to capture refugees who had fled Eritrea in the past.
The Eritrean government has not responded to Reuters calls for more than two weeks.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said on Saturday he was deeply concerned about the 100,000 Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia and what he called unconfirmed reports of violence against them.
The TPLF and Eritrea are arch enemies: the TPLF was in charge in Addis Ababa when Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a war between 1998 and 2000. But Eritrea and Abiy have good relations. The Ethiopian government has denied the TPLF’s accusations that Eritrean troops are operating on Ethiopian soil.
Eritrea is one of the most repressive nations in the world and around 10% of the population has fled.
The Tigrayans, who make up about 6% of the Ethiopian population of 115 million, dominated the government until Abiy took power two years ago. He vowed to unite Ethiopians and introduce freedoms after years of state repression that filled jails with tens of thousands of political prisoners.
His government also prosecuted senior Tigray officials for crimes such as corruption, torture and murder. The Tigrayan region viewed those trials as discrimination.
