Fighting Widens Across Northern Ethiopia
AFRICAGLOBAL SECURITYGEOPOLITICS
Photo: news.sky.com
A newly formed alliance of seven armed movements launched a coordinated offensive against Ethiopian federal forces this week, and the fighting has spread from Tigray into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, prompting the suspension of flights to the historic town of Lalibela.
The escalation began around September 23, with the Tigray People's Liberation Front opening operations in southern Tigray before the newly announced Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, which groups the TPLF with the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army, and factions from the Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz regions, widened the campaign. "They've begun an offensive around southern Tigray, carrying out strikes in many places," a TPLF central committee member said. Both federal forces and the alliance are using drones and mechanized units, and there are disputed allegations of Eritrean and Sudanese involvement.
In Tigray, where an internet disruption is in effect, residents are stockpiling supplies for fear of a return to the 2020-22 war, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, and the regional bloc IGAD has called for a ceasefire and a return to dialogue while the UN has voiced concern over the new coalition and the drone strikes. The alliance says its goal is to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government, but unresolved territorial disputes among its own member factions leave the path ahead uncertain.