Ethiopian troops have advanced further into the northern region of Tigray, seizing a key town on the road to its capital, officials in Addis Ababa have said.
The conflict between national forces and troops loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is heading towards the end of its second week.
There are widespread fears the war will exacerbate ethnic tensions elsewhere in Africa’s second-most populous country, draw in regional powers and destabilise the Horn of Africa.
On Sunday, the office of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, said the war in Tigray was irreversible and aimed at “enforcing the rule of law”.
A taskforce set up by Abiy to handle the government’s response claimed troops had liberated the town of Alamata. “They [the TPLF] fled, taking along around 10,000 prisoners,” it said in a statement, without specifying where the prisoners were from.
Though officials have confidently proclaimed imminent victory, Monday’s announcement that federal troops had reachedAlamata may not necessarily reinforce the message that the government offensive was making rapid progress.
The town of about 50,000 is 110 miles (180km) from Mekelle, Tigray’s capital and administrative centre, and only six miles from the border with the neighbouring Amhara region, the launch point for the troops.
Government forces also appear to be pushing forward further to the west, aiming to secure the frontier with Sudan and the strategically important town of Humera.
With communications mainly down and media barred, it remains difficult to independently verify assertions made by all sides.
Abiy launched military operations in Tigray 12 days ago after he accused local authorities of attacking a military camp and attempting to loot military assets. The TPLF, which is in power in the region, denies the charge and has accused the prime minister of concocting the story to justify the offensive.
Timeline
Key events leading to Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis
The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) topples Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the head of a communist junta that ruled the country from 1974. The coalition group is led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), guerrilla fighters who marched from their homeland in Ethiopia’s north to the capital, Addis Ababa.
The EPRDF sweeps to power in poorly contested elections, and the TPLF leader, Meles Zenawi, becomes Ethiopia’s prime minister. Tigrayans dominate senior ranks of government.
Meles introduces a system that gives the country’s main ethnic groups the chance to govern the areas in which they dominate. Though Tigrayans make up about 5% of the population, they benefit disproportionately, other regions complain, as roads and other infrastructure are built in their sparsely populated area.
The prime minister dies in office and a successor from another ethnic group is appointed.
Divisions break out in the EPRDF over how quickly to pursue political reforms in response to street protests that threaten the coalition’s grip.
Abiy Ahmed, an Oromo, takes over as prime minister, winning praise at home and abroad for opening up one of Africa’s most restrictive political and economic systems.
Tigrayans complain they are being persecuted in a crackdown on corruption and past abuses. Former senior military and political officials are put on trial.
Abiy is awarded the Nobel peace prize for his peacemaking efforts, which ended two decades of hostility with Eritrea. The TPLF continue to view Eritrea as an enemy.
Ethiopia’s ruling coalition agrees to form a single party, but the TPLF refuses to merge with three other ethnic-based parties, calling the move rushed and undemocratic.
Tigray holds regional elections in defiance of the federal government, which postponed nationwide polls due in August because of Covid-19. Abiy’s government says the vote is illegal.
The federal government starts to withhold some funds meant for social welfare programmes in Tigray, part of a plan to starve the regional authorities of cash in retaliation for the vote.
Abiy sends troops into Tigray, accusing the TPLF of attacking federal troops based in the region. The TPLF accuses Abiy of punishing the region for the September vote. Reuters
Since then, air strikes and ground combat between government forces and the TPLF have killed hundreds of people and sent as many as 25,000 refugees pouring into Sudan. The violence has raised international concern over the willingness of Abiy, who won a Nobel peace prize last year, to risk a lengthy civil war against well-armed forces in the region.
Though only 7 million people live in Tigray out of a total Ethiopian population of 110 million, much of the government troops’ equipment is kept in the province and local forces are considered experienced fighters. Military experts say the region’s tough terrain is ideal for guerilla-type warfare.
Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the TPLF, has called on the United Nations and African Union to condemn the offensive, accusing federal troops of “waging this war on the people of Tigray” with attacks on civilian infrastructure.
“We are not the initiators of this conflict and it is evident that Abiy Ahmed conducted this war as an attempt to consolidate his personal power,” he added, saying Ethiopia could become a failed state or disintegrate.
Fears that the conflict could spread into a wider regional war were heightened over the weekend when the TPLF’s forces fired rockets into Eritrea, after accusing the neighbouring country of sending tanks and thousands of soldiers to support Ethiopian federal troops – a charge Asmara denies.
There is deep animosity between the Tigrayan leadership and Isaias Afwerki, who has ruled Eritrea with an iron fist for more than 30 years, but analysts said the primary aim of the strike, which caused limited or no damage, was likely to have been to attract international attention to the intensifying conflict in the hope pressure from overseas powers may force Abiy to the negotiating table.
So far, Abiy, 44, has ignored calls for a ceasefire and negotiations from the UN secretary general, the US, European powers, the pope and others.
Timeline
Abiy Ahmed’s achievements
Abiy Ahmed becomes prime minister of Ethiopia after a leadership election among the ruling coalition, following the surprise resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn in February.
Abiy frees thousands of political detainees, including the opposition leader Andargachew Tsege, who had been facing the death penalty. Abiy invites him to his office within 24 hours of his release.
Parliament approves lifting the Ethiopian national state of emergency, two months before it is due to expire.
Abiy agrees to accept a 2002 border ruling giving disputed territory to Eritrea. The war between the two has raged on and off since Eritrea gained independence in the early 90s.
A grenade attack targeting Abiy kills two people, and injures more than 165. The blame is placed on internal factions opposed to reform.
The Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki hosts Abiy in Asmara, more than two decades since Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders last met in person. Cheering crowds line the streets, and direct telephone communications are restored between the countries.
The two leaders sign a joint declaration declaring that the “state of war that existed between the two countries has come to an end”.
With both countries having reopened their embassies, and commercial flights between the two capitals resumed, land border crossings between Ethiopia and Eritrea are reopened for the first time in 20 years. Five days later a peace agreement is signed in Saudi Arabia.
Abiy appoints women to half of the ministerial posts in the country, including Sahle-Work Zewde as the first female president. He receives an African excellence award for gender from the African Union for the move.
Abiy’s rule is not without its problems. It is estimated that more than a million Ethiopians were forced from their homes by ethnic violence in 2018, and he attracts criticism for initiating a programme that seems determined to drive people back to their homes, even if it does not seem safe.
Ethiopia makes headlines around the world for planting 350m trees in a day as part of the government’s national “green legacy” initiative. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier, and to address this citizens are being encouraged to each plant at least 40 seedlings, in order to grow 4bn trees.
A Ethiopian government spokesman on Monday said that mediation now would “only incentivise impunity”.
The Ethiopian National Defence Force has about 140,000 personnel and plenty of experience from fighting Islamist militants in Somalia and rebel groups in border regions, plus a two-decade border standoff with Eritrea.
But many senior officers were Tigrayan, much of its most powerful weaponry is in the hands of the TPLF, as well as the powerful Northern Command’s headquarters in Mekelle.
The TPLF has a formidable history, spearheading the rebel march to Addis Ababa that ousted a Marxist dictatorship in 1991 and bearing the brunt of a 1998-2000 war with Eritrea in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
Abiy once fought alongside the Tigrayans and was a partner in government with them until 2018 when he took office. He won his Nobel prize for pursuing peace with Eritrea, starting to liberalise the economy and opening a repressive political system.
Although his sweeping political reforms won widespread praise, they have allowed old ethnic and other grievances to surface.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s governing coalition for decades before Abiy came to power, and Tigrayan leaders complained of being unfairly targeted in corruption prosecutions, removed from top positions and blamed for the country’s problems.
The postponement of national elections owing to the Covid-19 pandemic aggravated tensions and when parliamentarians in Addis Abab voted to extend officials’ mandates, Tigrayan leaders went ahead with regional elections in September that Abiy’s government deemed illegal.
Amnesty International has denounced the killing of scores and possibly hundreds of civilian labourers in a massacre that both sides have blamed on each other.
