Blinken calls for negotiations over Ethiopia’s military escalation Conflict News

The U.S. Secretary of State has expressed concern over the escalation of fighting between government forces and Tigray fighters.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is deeply concerned about Ethiopia’s military escalation and has called for urgent negotiations on the crisis, a U.S. State Department spokesman said.

In the comments on Friday night, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived within hours appeared in the first line with the national army.

“Secretary Blink expressed great concern over the alarming signs of military force in Ethiopia and stressed the need to move urgently to the negotiations,” Ned Price said in a statement.

Price released the statement after a phone call between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Blinken.

On Friday, Fana Broadcasting, which is affiliated with the Ethiopian state, reported that they were fighting rebel forces in northeastern Tigray in the Abiy Afar region on the front lines of the army.

Abiy posted the same video on his Twitter account.

“We will not bury the enemy until the enemy is buried,” he said in a recorded statement, adding that the morale of the army was high.

The Abiy government has been fighting forces in Tigris for more than a year in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions in Africa’s second most populous nation.

On Friday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said the number of people in need of food aid in the north of the country had risen to more than nine million.

The conflict began in November 2020 when Abiy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, sent troops to remove the Tigraira regional government party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The TPLF dominated the federal government for nearly 30 years until Abiy took office in 2018.

A few weeks later, it seemed like a decisive victory for government forces to take the capital Mekelle in Tigray. However, war broke out and by June 2021 the Tigris forces had taken over he reclaimed most of the region and pushed to the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.

Recently, Tigris forces reported major land gains, they said this week that they had taken a town 220 km (135 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa. Much of northern Ethiopia is in the shadow of communications and access to journalists is severely restricted, making it difficult to verify battlefield claims.