Airstrikes and artillery fire rocked northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region overnight into Monday, aid sources said, in clashes between federal government and rebel forces that have raised fears of wider fighting.
– Air attacks killed at least 17 people northwest of Tigray’s capital Mekelle – which federal government forces took over the weekend – according to a bulletin circulated among humanitarian groups.
– The bulletin added that the government forces exchanged artillery fire with fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front – part of a rebel alliance aiming to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
– Spokespeople for Abiy’s office, the federal Ethiopian National Defence Force and the TPLF did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reports, which Reuters could not confirm independently.
– Analysts say the fighting threatens to escalate into a wider conflict, with Ethiopia accusing neighbouring Eritrea and Sudan, and beyond them Egypt, of supporting the armed opposition. All three countries have denied this.
– Last week, Ethiopia and Eritrea, which fought a border war from 1998-2000, severed diplomatic ties over the allegations.
– On Sunday, the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia discussed the crisis during a meeting, according to two Egyptian security officials and one political official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
– They agreed to coordinate military and intelligence efforts if the conflict escalated to the borders Ethiopia shares with Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia, the sources added, without going into further detail
– The fighting since September 23 is the worst escalation of violence since a 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
– On Monday morning, Ethiopia’s military and Tigrayan forces exchanged heavy artillery fire close to the Tekeze River near the town of Mai Tsebri, according to the humanitarian bulletin.
– Overnight, airstrikes killed at least nine people in Adwa, which is about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Mekelle, and eight in Sheraro in northwestern Tigray, the bulletin said.
– It did not say who launched the airstrikes.
– Another aid worker confirmed the strikes in Adwa, but did not have information about casualties.
– In Mekelle, which Tigrayan forces left without a fight, daily life was returning to normal, with shops reopening and phone and internet access returning a week-long disruption, residents said.
– On Saturday, the US State Department urged Asmara and Addis Ababa to exercise restraint, warning that a conflict would jeopardise US collaboration with both countries.
– Eritrean forces fought in support of Ethiopia’s federal government in Tigray during the 2020-2022 war following a 2018 normalisation of ties between the longtime foes that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.
– Relations soured afterward, in part over landlocked Ethiopia’s public insistence that sea access is vital for its security and economy.
– In a speech to parliament on Monday, Abiy emphasised the need to have access to the sea.
– “Ethiopia’s modernisation cannot be realised without sea access,” he said after being sworn in for another five-year term following his Prosperity Party’s landslide victory in June’s parliamentary elections.
– Eritrea says it fears Ethiopia will try to take its Assab port by force. Abiy has said Ethiopia intends to secure sea access through peaceful means.