Fighting between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) escalated on Thursday, threatening to shatter a fragile 2022 peace deal.
The renewed fighting first broke out in the Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia on Wednesday.
“We are in the situation of full-blown war now,” TPLF vice president Amanuel Assefa told AFP news agency.
On Thursday, Ethiopia’s military said it “launched a counter-offensive that inflicted heavy personnel and equipment losses on the TPLF.”
The military said it killed 272 people among the Tigrayan rebels and wounded some 260 more. These figures could not be independently verified, and there was no breakdown given for soldiers and civilians.
Calls for deescelation
The African Union, the United Nations and other international observers have called for restraint and deescelation.
“I am disappointed to see the leadership of the TPLF, that the United States sanctioned earlier this year, make the poor decision to launch a large-scale offensive today,” said Ervin J. Massinga, the US ambassador in Addis Ababa.
“Rejecting dialogue sponsored by the African Union under President Obasanjo and engaging in an unwinnable fight does nothing for the people,” he added.
What led to the resumption in fighting?
The TPLF was Ethiopia’s dominant political force from 1991 until 2018.
It governed with a coalition of other ethnic-based parties, but critics accused it of creating these parties as loyal opposition to sideline preexisting ethnic movements.
When Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, he sidelined the TPFL in favor of a government not based on ethnic lines, dominated by his Prosperity Party.
Abiy’s early foreign policy saw him repair relations with Ethiopia’s former archrival Eritrea — efforts for which he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 2019.
But his later determination for landlocked Ethiopia to have access to a seaport was seen as provocative in Eritrea as well in Somalia.
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The TPLF then launched a rebellion against Abiy in 2020, spiraling into a two-year war that saw some 500,000 killed due to violence, famine and the collapse of health services.
During that war, Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopian federal forces against the TPLF.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Ethiopian President Taye Atske Selassie Amde decried “the forces of destruction and mayhem” and “interference in our internal affairs by adversarial elements.”
Conflict spreads to Amhara region
Fighting was also reported in the Amhara region in the Ethiopian highlands.
The AFP news agency received reports of fighting around the holy city of Lalibela, home to Ethiopia’s ancient, UNESCO-listed rock-hewn churches.
Flights to the popular tourist destination were suspended on Thursday.
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The TPLF announced an alliance with Amhara’s Fano militia, a former foe that has been waging its own insurgency in the region since 2023.
The Fano militia originally emerged as an opponent of TPFL rule and the two sides still have competing claims over land that was absorbed in to the Amhara region from the Tigray region after the last war.
“The only issue joining them is their opposition to Prosperity Party rule,” said Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
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