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Nairobi, Kenya (AP) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed again rejected talks with regional opposition leaders from Tigre on Friday, but said he was ready to speak with representatives who “function legally” there during a meeting. with three special envoys from the African Union. End the deadly conflict between federal forces and forces in the region.
The meeting took place after Abe said the army had been ordered to move to the “final stage” of an attack, as people fled the capital, Tigre, fearing an immediate attack. Stop the leaders of the Tigre Popular Liberation Front, which governs the region. The government and the Abhi region consider it illegal.
No immediate news was received from the three AU ambassadors, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Mozambique President Joachim Sisano and former South African President Kagalema Motlande. AU spokeswoman Eppa Calondo did not say whether ambassadors could meet with TPLF leaders, something Abijah’s office rejected.
The prime minister praised the “concern for the elderly” of the AU ambassadors, saying that his government’s failure to enforce the rule of law in Tigris “will foster a culture of impunity with catastrophic costs to the country’s survival.” .
Abi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, rejected international “intervention”.
The fighting is said to have been good outside the densely populated city of McKelle, with a population of half a million people, whom the Ethiopian government warned “mercilessly” if they did not part ways with the DPLF leaders in a timely manner. Abi said Thursday that the army, with tanks, had been ordered to stay inside and stay inside the house and disarm. His government has promised to protect the public.
With communications and transportation links cut, it is difficult to verify claims about the November 4 fighting between Ethiopian forces and the DPLP, which once dominated the Ethiopian government but was largely marginalized under the Abyssinian regime.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have died. The fighting threatens to destabilize Ethiopia, described as the strategic hub of the Horn of Africa, and could destabilize its neighbors.
Food and other supplies have been depleted in the Tigre region, which has a population of 6 million. The United Nations continues to urge immediate access to neutral and impartial humanitarian aid. The Ethiopian government has said it will open a “humanitarian access route” under the administration of the country’s Ministry of Peace.
Many crises are growing. Some of the tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees living in camps in northern Ethiopia are on fire as they fight.
Ethiopian forces near the Sudan border are preventing them from leaving Ethiopia, and the kidnapping of refugees has largely been reduced to a ploy, Refugee Associated Press was told. The Ethiopian government has not commented on the matter.
More than 40,000 refugees have entered remote Sudan, where local communities and humanitarian workers struggle to provide food, shelter and care. Almost half of the refugees are children. The prevalence of COVID-19 is only a concern.
The UN Mohammed Rafiq Nasri of the Refugee Organization said: “We cannot maintain social exclusion in the countryside here.” Today we have 1,000 people coming to the camp. Shelter is one of the biggest challenges we face right now. “
Scared, and sometimes without word from loved ones, refugees continue to share horrific stories of the fighting and beg for it to stop.
“It just came to our attention then. The country has no peace. You see a tribe killing another race. It is very difficult, ”said one, Atsbaha Ktsadik.
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Contributed by Faye Abul Qasim in Umm Rakouba, Sudan.
