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“We ask you to surrender peacefully within 72 hours,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Sunday night, Reuters wrote.
There is no indication that the TPLF military and political leaders are surrendering to you.
Reuters writes that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) is building defense positions in and around the provincial capital, Mekele.
A mother with a young child has fled from Tigray in Ethiopia to Sudan. At least 30,000 have fled to neighboring countries due to the war in Tigray.
Photo: Ashraf Shazly / AFP
TPLF is the governing party of Tigray. The leaders want to maintain strong regional autonomy. Some party forces want Tigray to be separated from the rest of Ethiopia.
All ten provinces are entitled to their own local police and military forces. TPLF has built a strong force according to the International Crisis Group.
Fear great losses
Human rights organizations fear that there will be large civilian casualties if there is fighting in Mekele. The city has 500,000 inhabitants.
– The government will do everything possible to limit suffering among the civilian population, says government spokesman Redwan Hussein, writes Reuters.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is calling on civilians to support the government army. He is said to have seized control of several cities, including the second largest city, Adigrat, writes Reuters.
The Prime Minister reiterated the cause of the military operation in Tigray.
The TPLF is said to have attacked a military camp near the city of Dansha on November 4. The TPLF is said to have seized a large arsenal of weapons belonging to the northern command of the government army. He was crossing a red line, Abiy said.
Support the demonstration in the capital, Ethiopia. There have been various marks in support of the government army’s military operation in Tigray. The photo is from Addis Ababa on November 17.
Photo: Mulugeta Ayene / AP
Satellite images show destruction
In the city of Dansha, where the government army is said to have been attacked on November 4, the destruction is said to be great.
According to Reuters, satellite images hint at the devastation caused by the fighting and airstrikes. The destroyed buildings line the main street of Dansha.
Reuters has received the photos from the space company Maxar Technologies.
No to mediation
This weekend, the African Union (AU) announced that it has appointed three former presidents to mediate in the conflict.
They are Joaquim Chissano from Mozambique, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf from Liberia and Kgalema Motlanthe from South Africa.
Ethiopia now says no to mediation. One of the runners appointed by the AU is former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Photo: Freelance Photographer. / Reuters
A few hours after the AU announced the intermediaries, the Ethiopian government rejected that talks about the conflict in the Tigray region are imminent.
Amnesty: TPLF probably behind the massacre
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for an investigation into possible war crimes after the start of the war on 4 November.
At least two massacres have been reported.
According to Amnesty International, several hundred civilians were killed in a massacre carried out by militias affiliated with the TPLF. The survivors are said to have recounted the atrocities committed in Mai-Kadra.
– I am still in shock and struggling to cope with what I have experienced, says an Amnesty witness.
– The road out of Mai-Kadra was full of dead, he says.
Amnesty says they do not know how many people died in the November 9 massacre.
– We have confirmed massacres of an unknown number of civilians. They were day laborers and had nothing to do with the armed conflict, says Deprose Muchena, head of Amnesty International in East Africa.
– It is a terrible tragedy, says Muchena in Amnesty International.
There must also have been a massacre of passengers on a bus. The dead belong to the Amhara people.
Refugees who have crossed the border into Sudan. The photo is from Hamdayat in eastern Sudan.
Photo: Nariman El-mofty / AP
TPLF left the Abiy government
The TPLF had been in power in Ethiopia for about 30 years. The TPLF seized power from a communist regime in 1991.
The party gained much less power after Abiy became prime minister in 2018.
The TPLF eventually withdrew completely from the coalition government. The party distanced itself from the Abiy political project, which claimed that ethnicity should play a minor role in politics.
In December 2019, the old government coalition dominated by the TPLF was dissolved.
Since then, the TPLF has ruled locally in Tigray, where the party has its power base.
All ethnic parties in the coalition, except the TPLF, agreed to join. They formed the Welfare Party led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Closed to the outside world
The Tigray region is the origin of the ancient civilization of Ethiopia, writes Bistandsaktuelt. It is the 3,000-year-old Axum civilization.
The war, which has lasted for two weeks, has triggered a major humanitarian crisis. Thousands of refugees are fleeing across the border into Sudan.
At the same time, large areas of Tigray are closed to the outside world. Aid organizations have repeatedly warned of a precarious situation for the civilian population.
Phone and network connections are lost. It is not clear how many have died and if they are several hundred or several thousand.
