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DN learns at lunchtime on Saturday that the artillery barrage has begun against the capital of the Tigray region, Mekelle, which is the last stronghold of the TPLF movement, which since the beginning of November has been in open war with the government from Addis Ababa and its leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
In a text message to Reuters, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael confirms that Mekelle is being subjected to “heavy bombardment”.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Photo: Themba Hadebe / AP
Wednesday night ran a deadline for TPLF leaders to lay down their arms and turn themselves over to justice. The federal government did not immediately take action, but first received a troika of African Union politicians, consisting of the presidents of Liberia, Mozambique and South Africa, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Joaquin Chissano and Kgalema Motlanthe, but as soon as they left the capital. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ready to start the final offensive.
According to Reuters, a representative of the federal army said late Friday that they expect to take control of Mekelle within days.
The town of Wikro, which is a couple of miles north of Mekelle, it fell on Friday night and now the federal army is outside the provincial capital, which has been bombarded with artillery.
– A humanitarian catastrophe may soon be a fact in Mekelle. The price of a confrontation between two heavily armed armies in a large city of around 500,000 inhabitants can be overwhelming.
Writes the Crisis Group think tank, whose personnel were transferred from Ethiopia by the Abiy government, in a statement.
It already has 40,000 refugees crossed the border into neighboring Sudan in the west, but within Tigray province, many more people are believed to be fleeing the fighting and widespread abuses against civilians have been reported.
More than 40,000 refugees have already crossed the border into Sudan since the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray province.
Photo: Ashraf Shazly / AFP
Thousands of soldiers are believed to have been killed in the fighting, in which, in addition to federal troops and TPLF soldiers, local militias and regular troops from neighboring Eritrea participate.
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Under Barack Obama, Susan Rice hinted earlier this week on Twitter that an attack on Mekelle with so many civilians present could mean that the government, spearheaded by last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners, is committing war crimes.
https://twitter.com/AmbassadorRice/status/1330537213373927425?s=20
A TPLF in distress should, DN Experiences, has appointed a neutral envoy for talks with the government, but Prime Minister Abiy has shown no sign of wanting to start talks with TPLF.
The open conflict erupted in early November following an attack on a federal army base in Tigray (the government claims) and follows several months of deteriorating relations between the parties. For a quarter century, the TPLF was the dominant force in Ethiopian politics, but it has been marginalized during the political upheavals of recent years in Africa’s second most populous country.
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