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The Ethiopian government today launched a manhunt for leaders of a rebel faction in the northern region of Tigray after announcing that federal troops had seized the regional capital, Mekelle, and that military operations were complete.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that Mekelle hospitals are running out of supplies, such as gloves, to care for the wounded, and that one hospital lacks body bags for the dead. An ICRC statement did not give death and injury figures, but said the situation was “calm” today.
The government has not said whether there were casualties in its offensive to take the city.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has tried to quell a rebellion by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a powerful ethnically based party that dominated the central government for nearly three decades before Abiy came to power in 2018.
He said last night that federal troops had taken control of Mekelle within hours of launching an offensive there, allaying fears of prolonged fighting in the city of 500,000 people.
Read: How Ethiopia came to the brink of civil war
TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael later told Reuters in a series of text messages that his forces were withdrawing from the surrounding city but would continue to fight, raising the specter of a protracted guerrilla war.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed and nearly 44,000 have fled to neighboring Sudan since the fighting began on November 4.
The conflict has been another test for Abiy, who is trying to hold together a mosaic of ethnic groups that make up Ethiopia’s 115 million people. The influx of refugees and the TPLF attacks in neighboring Eritrea have also threatened to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
Claims from all sides are difficult to verify as telephone and internet links to Tigray have been down and access is strictly controlled since fighting broke out this month.
The prime minister, who refers to the three-week conflict as an internal matter of public order, has rejected international offers of mediation. He said the federal police would try to arrest the TPLF “criminals” and take them to court.
Late yesterday, police issued arrest warrants for 17 more military officers charged with crimes including treason and embezzlement of public property, state affiliate Fana TV reported. Arrest warrants have already been issued for 117 senior officers with suspected ties to the TPLF since the conflict began.
‘Stabilization’
Lieutenant General Bacha Debele told Fana TV on Sunday that the army was involved in “stabilization activities”, including assisting people displaced by the fighting to return to their villages.
It was unclear if any TPLF leaders had surrendered or been arrested since Saturday. His whereabouts and plans were also unknown.
When asked by Reuters on Saturday if the TPLF would continue to fight, Debretsion responded in a text message: “Certainly. It is about defending our right to self-determination.”
Ethiopian state television broadcast images of federal troops today at a location that did not specify applause and cheers. Residents of five cities in the Amhara region, which has a protracted border dispute with Tigray, took to the streets to show their support for the military, the state media agency Amhara reported.
Diplomats and regional experts have said that a quick military victory in Mekelle may not signal the end of the conflict.
“The Tigray leadership has vowed to keep fighting, and while it is unclear how exhausted Tigray’s security forces are from the conflict, armed resistance to the federal government may well be backed by much of the regional government and party apparatus. , including the local militia, by other nationalist elements in Tigray, “Will Davison, a senior analyst on Ethiopia at think tank International Crisis Group, told Reuters today.
The TPLF has a history of guerrilla resistance. The mountainous terrain of Tigray and the borders with Sudan and Eritrea assisted the group during its long fight against the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, whom it finally overthrew in 1991.
The TPLF and Eritrean forces fought together against Mengistu and Eritrea secured its independence with his departure, but relations deteriorated soon after. The two nations went to war over a border dispute in 1998-2000.
Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for making peace with Eritrea, but the TPLF continues to regard the country as a mortal enemy.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency said today that he hoped the government’s promise to open humanitarian access to Tigray would be fulfilled as soon as possible.
Explosions in the capital of Eritrea
Six explosions were reported in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, on Saturday night, the US State Department said in a statement, although it was not immediately clear whether they were related to the Tigray conflict. The statement did not mention the cause or location of the explosions.
The TPLF accused Eritrea of sending troops to Tigray in support of the Ethiopian government and launched rockets at its capital, Asmara, on November 14.
Government officials in Asmara and Addis Ababa did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the latest blasts. Neither could the Tigrayan forces be reached.
The Abiy government launched the offensive in Tigray after what it described as an attack by local forces on federal troops stationed there.
The TPLF accuses Abiy of wanting to centralize control at the expense of Ethiopia’s 10 regions, which wield broad powers over matters such as taxes and security. Abiy denies it.
Tensions escalated after Tigray held a regional election in September in defiance of the federal government, which had postponed voting across the country in August due to the Covid-19 pandemic and called Tigray’s vote illegal.
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