After changing the battlefield, what is it like for the Ethiopian Tigray war? | Ethiopia News

Ethiopian forces captured the capital of Tigray, Mekelle, in late November when the Addis Ababa government represented a final blow to forces loyal to the former government in the northern region.

But on June 29, seven months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed claimed victory, his troops left Mekelle vacant amid defeats on the battlefield after Tigrayan forces launched a major counteroffensive.

A few hours after the city was evacuated, Ethiopia announced that it had imposed a unilateral ceasefire, apparently for humanitarian reasons.

“The main purpose of the ceasefire is to facilitate aid routes and allow farmers to cultivate their crops in peace,” Abraham Belay Tigray, the now-ousted head of the interim administration, explained during his tenure on state television shortly after taking office.

The statement said Ethiopia was stepping up international pressure on Tigray in the face of credible reports of extrajudicial killings, widespread rape and famine. As calculated by the United Nations more than 90 percent out of its six million inhabitants they need emergency food aid.

He sparked hope that after eight months of brutal warfare, the region could stop fighting. But on the day the Ethiopian army withdrew from Mekelle, telephone lines and support organizations across Tigray were cut off from the limited Internet access they used for their operations.

Reports then emerged that a bridge over the Tekeze River, a key passageway for aid to Tigray, had been destroyed. Both parties claimed responsibility for the fighting.

Developments continue to hamper support for affected populations, including some of those two million people displaced during the war.

“We are very concerned about both the closure of Shire and Mekelle airports and the blocking of access to Tigray and some roads connecting to Tigray, especially the road between Shire and Debark, when we have an operational base in the Amhara region,” said Neven Crvenković. , Spokesman for the UN refugee agency in Ethiopia.

“The destruction of the bridge over the Tekeze River has made this road impassable; this has an impact on the ability of people to move, support materials and basic supplies such as food, fuel and money.”

Aside from the acts of sabotage, the rhetoric of the warring factions has hardly been compatible since Mekelle was captured by troops loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) regional party, recently named Tigray Defense Forces (TDF).

A spokesman for the TPLF, Getachew Reda, has since clearly threatened to send Tigrayan forces to Eritrea as troops enter Tigray in support of Abray’s army. “Our main focus is to degrade enemy combat capabilities,” he told Reuters.

After the removal of Mekelle, Eritrean soldiers also left several cities in Tigray, including Axum and Shiraro, which they held for months.

Ethiopian army lieutenant Bacha Debele, however, warned in a press conference in Addis Ababa last week: “If provoked, [the army] He can march to Mekelle today as well. But if we go back, the damage will be much worse than before. “

Uncompromising attitudes

Tigrayan officials have been open for months to negotiate the end of the war. After initially dismissing the federal government’s unilateral statement as a “joke,” it was determined by the TPLF on Sunday list of conditions for ceasefire conversations.

But some requests, including a request to recognize the authority of the TPLF in the Addis Ababa region, will almost certainly be rejected.

“Neither the Ethiopian government nor the TPLF has made a significant commitment to move this opening forward,” Judd Devermont, director of the U.S.-based Center for Strategic Research and the International Center for Africa, told Al Jazeera.

“There are still major obstacles to providing humanitarian access and ongoing concerns about human rights violations committed by all parties.”

Despite seemingly uncomplicated attitudes and the Ethiopian government’s refusal to negotiate with former TPLF members, he called the group a “terrorist” In Ethiopia’s parliament in May, there is at least one way to focus on potential third-party intermediaries: prisoners.

On July 2, thousands of apparently captive Ethiopian soldiers marched through Mekelle on their way to a farm facility in the city. TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael tell They said they would release soldiers from the New York Times newspaper, but officers and other commanders would remain in custody.

“The number of POWs [prisoners of war] it has surpassed 8,000 in the hospitality industry and can still be expanded, “said TPLF adviser Al Jazeera Fesseha Tessema and a former Ethiopian diplomat.” We have visited the International Red Cross and asked for support organizations to help provide food for all. “

In an email to Al Jazeera, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross declined to comment on the matter.

According to Fesseha, the Ethiopian government still does not want to turn to the TPLF to report the captured troops. Abiy press secretary Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to an email query about POWs. Ethiopian officials and state media have not made a statement on the matter.

For its part, the Ethiopian government is said to have hundreds – and perhaps more – members of the Tigrayan ethnic group in the Ethiopian army. arrested believing that they would carry out a revolt in the first days of the war. Negotiated release of prisoners on both sides could open the door for preliminary talks to establish a concrete ceasefire.

Another factor that can relax hard positions is the fatigue of war. U.S. Sen. Chris Coons said Prime Minister Abiy told him late last year that the war would end in six weeks.

But the struggle was long and long, and eventually the United States imposed economic sanctions and visa restrictions on Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Abiy said last week that his government had spent more than $ 100,000 billion ($ 2.3 billion) on rehabilitation and food aid in the region, without incurring the cost of the military campaign – at a time when national instability and coronavirus pandemics were severe. a blow to the country’s finances.

“Ethiopia’s economy will take several years, perhaps more than a decade to recover, and the pre-war state to recover,” predicts Ayele Gelan, a research economist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.

“What is officially denounced is also a huge underestimation of the real money costs of the war. We should not only count the money spent over the last eight months to build the destroyed goods, but also the money spent over the decades. The cost of Tigray’s capital is not only military assets, it also includes destroyed roads, bridges, houses, farms. ”

Analysts say the TDF would probably have to retreat from the big cities to the mountains if the usual war were to break out again. The explosion of new hostilities would be especially disastrous for the hundreds of thousands of people who have said they are on the verge of starvation and further shrinking the region.

With the rainy season underway in Ethiopia, a ceasefire would have been strategic for the warring factions, with or without a ceasefire. The Army can use that period to recover, rearm, and relocate as soon as conditions dry up again.

In the 1998-2000 border war in Ethiopia and Eritrea, when tens of thousands of people were killed, fighting broke out in Ethiopia during the Ethiopian rainy season, which began in June and ended in late August or early September. Both sides used these times to train fighters or to dig trenches before starting a fight.

The Ethiopian government itself has stated that it would carry out its unilateral ceasefire They will expire in September, the allied coalition exacerbates fears that the rainy season is being used as a recovery period ahead of planned planned offensives. On paper, he would like to say that the international community only has about two months to seal the final ceasefire.

“It is imperative for all parties to facilitate access to relief funds, provide food aid to millions of tigers and ensure that farmers are planted and planted as the rainy season begins,” the International Crisis Group said. statement on Friday.

“They should also get political reconciliation in their time.”