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According to the army, Mekelle should be isolated with tanks.
– We will place a ring of our tanks around the city and then open artillery fire. So far, we have avoided targets that risk harming civilians, but in the case of Mekelle, it may be different, Colonel Dejene Tsegaye tells Ethiopia’s state radio and television company.
A spokesperson for the Ethiopian military force in Tigray, Redwan Hussein, urges the Tigray rulers, TPLF, to surrender as soon as possible, “there is still time for that.”
Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the TPLF guerrilla, says there are empty threats:
– They tried to form their circle but failed, he writes in a text message to the Reuters news agency.
Bombed airports
The situation in Tigray is very serious, more than a thousand people have already died in the fighting and almost 50,000 have fled to neighboring Sudan. A massacre attributed to TPLF has taken place in an area that is said to support the central government.
The TPLF has also fired missiles across the border into Eritrea. In addition, several airports and cities in the Amhara province south of Tigray have been bombed.
Both the UN and the African Union have unsuccessfully called on both sides to start negotiations and call for a ceasefire.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s young prime minister, has stated that he will not negotiate with those he calls “traitors” and that talks will not start while the TPLF is in power in Tigray. Since Tigray, the responses have been similar.
Prolonged war risk
A classified UN assessment of the military situation in Tigray says the government army has encountered tougher resistance than is externally recognized. There is talk of the risks of a protracted war of attrition.
But that doesn’t stop Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s offensive. To hold federal Ethiopia together, according to Ethiopian experts, it is of utmost importance for him to quell the TPLF uprising in Tigray.
It’s not just about the situation in Tigray, says expert Mesfin Negash, senior director of the Civil Rights Defenders Africa Bureau:
– TPLF also supports other regional elites fighting for local liberation, both officially and unofficially.
Within the TPLF there is also the core of hard-line leaders who for many years ruled Ethiopia as a police state. They feel unfairly treated and oppose the democratization of the country by Abiy.
Risk judgments
The journalist Tesfalem Waldyes has tried to enter Tigray, but the entire region and the proximity to the borders are cordoned off:
– It is impossible to get confirmed information about what is happening in Tigray now, he tells Dagens ETC from Addis Ababa by phone. We receive reports on state television that the army is about to end the war militarily, but if that is true we do not know. Many criticize Abiy for a variety of reasons, but since the TPLF attacked Ethiopian soldiers, support for him and the army has grown considerably.
According to Tesfalem, the TPLF offensive against the central government is also due to the fact that guerrilla leaders can be brought to justice.
– They committed terrible abuses against a large part of the opposition during their mandate. Now they are concerned that the charges against them, ranging from murder to torture, will go to trial.
Tesfalem knows this: he himself was imprisoned without receiving any concrete charges and was later forced to leave the country.
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