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The Ethiopian army has said it is “at war” with the ruling party of the northern Tigray region, amid unconfirmed reports of fighting, artillery duels and air strikes.
There appears to be little hope of avoiding conflict in Africa’s second most populous country, with senior officials on both sides apparently determined to seek a military advantage before any negotiations designed to defuse the crisis.
Analysts and diplomats have been warning for weeks that a clash between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) could plunge Ethiopia into a bitter and bloody civil conflict.
“Our country has entered a war that it did not anticipate. This war is shameful, it doesn’t make sense, ”Berhanu Jula Gelalcha, Ethiopia’s deputy chief of defense staff, said at a news conference in Addis Ababa on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the TPLF of attacking a military camp in the region and attempting to loot military assets.
The TPLF denies that the attack occurred and accuses Abiy of fabricating the story to justify the deployment of the military against the organization.
“What has been started against us is clearly a war, an invasion…. This is a war we are waging to preserve our existence, ”Debretsion Gebremichael, president of the TPLF and president of the Tigray region, said at a press conference.
Debretsion said clashes persisted in western Tigray and that federal troops were gathering at the border in neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.
There were also reports that military planes had carried out air strikes around their capital, Mekele.
Diplomats in Addis Ababa said there were casualties on both sides, but with telephone and internet connections in Tigray cut off for a second day, there was no confirmation or details of the reports.
The clashes in Tigray have prompted expressions of concern in the UN, the United States and the EU. Experts fear a “protracted and disastrous” conflict that could “seriously strain an Ethiopian state already battered by multiple serious political challenges, and send shockwaves into the Horn of Africa region and beyond.”
“It appears that a war is underway that many Ethiopians feared was possible but hoped would never happen. …. Unless urgently stopped [it] it will be devastating not only for the country but for the entire Horn of Africa, ”the International Crisis Group said in a briefing on Thursday.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for decades before Abiy took office in 2018 and announced sweeping political reforms. However, these reforms have allowed old ethnic and other grievances to surface and have caused instability.
The people of Tigray make up 5% of Ethiopia’s 109 million people, but the region is richer and more influential than many other larger regions.
Under Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for ending a war with neighboring Eritrea, Tigray leaders have complained of being unjustly targeted in corruption trials, removed from the highest positions. and blamed for the country’s problems.
One factor in the latest crisis is the postponement of national elections due to the Covid-19 pandemic. National elections were due to take place in August, but election officials ruled in March that all voting would be delayed until the threat of the virus had abated.
When parliamentarians voted to extend the officials’ terms, which would have expired in early October, Tigray’s leaders went ahead with regional elections in September that the Abiy government deemed illegal.
Now each side views the other as illegitimate, and federal lawmakers have ruled that the Abiy government should cut off contact and funding for the Tigray leadership.
The Tigray region is home to a large portion of federal military personnel and the location of much of their equipment, a legacy of Ethiopia’s 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, its northern neighbor.
Some analysts estimate that Tigray could muster more than half the total personnel and mechanized divisions of the military, meaning that neither side could rely on a quick victory.
There is a widespread fear that the open conflict will exacerbate further secessionist sentiment in other parts of Ethiopia.
“We are working to ensure that the war does not reach the center of the country. It will end there in Tigray, ”General Berhanu said.
