[ad_1]
Several explosions rocked Eritrea’s capital Asmara, which is in the highlands about 10 miles from the border with the war-torn Ethiopian province of Tigray, late Saturday.
Eritrea is one of the most closed countries in the world and it was in the detours that the news of the explosions reached the international media. The Al Jazeera television channel refers to a local Eritrean radio station for Eritrean exiles in Paris who reportedly heard several explosions from residents of Asmara that broke the silence on Saturday night. One rocket must have failed to reach the Ministry of Information and two must have reached the airport area.
Now Debretsion confirms Gebremichael, leader of the ruling group TPLF (Tigrean Liberation Front) of Tigray province, which is behind the rocket attack on Asmara.
The capital of Eritrea is a legitimate target because Eritrea allows Ethiopian government forces to use Asmar airports, Debretsion Gebremichael said in an interview with the AFP news agency. He also claims, in an interview with Reuters, that they are fighting “16 divisions” of the Eritrean army. “There are fights on several fronts,” he wrote in a text message to the news agency.
To the AP, he says that as long as Eritrean forces fight inside Ethiopia, all legitimate military targets will be attacked.
– We will fight them on all fronts and with all the means that we have at our disposal, he says.
Ethiopian refugees who fled from the Tigray region to Sudan’s Kasala state.
Photo: Ebrahim Hamid / AFP
A division can happen over 10,000 soldiers and the fact that Eritrea has mobilized so many troops in a short time raises questions. But the country is heavily militarized and has been in a state of permanent mobilization during the cold war of the last quarter century with Ethiopia. Eritrea is estimated to have an army of at least 250,000 soldiers and an extensive reserve.
The Eritrean regime, led by dictator Isaias Afwerki, has its origins in the EPLF guerrilla movement, which fought alongside the Tigray-based TPLF against the Derg junta in Addis Ababa during the civil war of the 1980s. After the victory of the war, Eritrea went its own way and in 1993 became an independent country, while the TPLF came to dominate Ethiopian politics for many years.
But the relationship between the two the allies quickly turned bitter. A disputed border sparked war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998. The border town of Badme was at the center of the conflict and this battle apple would have gone to Eritrea after the 2018 peace agreement between the countries, which led to that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize last year. But Tigray’s generals refused to withdraw and the city may now play a symbolic role in Eritrea’s involvement in the conflict.
When Eritrea is now embroiled in conflict it will be much more difficult to come up with a quick solution. None of the parties involved has sent any signs of willingness to speak.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Abiy wrote on Twitter that “justice will prevail.”
https://twitter.com/AbiyAhmedAli/status/1327905612550852608?s=20
“By promoting the administration of justice and holding those who have plundered and destabilized Ethiopia accountable, we will lay the foundations for lasting peace and harmony,” Abiy wrote in a statement differing from his opponent Debretion’s description of the situation as a “war. on a large scale. “
Abiy wanted to affirm that the military operation, which began almost two weeks ago, is a police operation against the TPLF leadership, despite the fact that it involves bombing and artillery and has forced it to mobilize special forces from all over the country.
The attack on Asmara is further confirmation that the TPLF still has powerful weapons in its arsenal. On Friday, two airports in the Ethiopian cities of Gondar and Bahir Dar were hit with rockets and Debretsion does not rule out further attacks. When asked by the AP if Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa could be attacked, he replied:
– I don’t want to tell you, but missiles have a long range.
The capital is the seat for the African Union and with the strong growth of the airline Ethiopian Airlines it has become a transportation hub for the continent.
In Addis Ababa, unrest is increasing among the many Tigers living outside of their disputed home province. Several human rights organizations warn that the conflict could trigger ethnic violence, and security forces have compiled lists of people of Tigranian descent.
At the same time, refugees from Tigray testify about widespread abuses within the province. Both sides are said to have committed abuses and the fighting has forced more than 20,000 civilians to cross the border into neighboring Sudan in the west.
Read more:
Bus attack in western Ethiopia: 34 dead
Large-scale civil war threatens after airport attacks in Ethiopia
UN: alarming levels of ethnic violence in Ethiopia
[ad_2]
