The Editor
It has been simmering in northern Ethiopia for weeks. A breakaway region is rebelling against the political leadership in Addis Ababa. According to the State Department in Washington, Eritrea’s military is now likely to get involved in the conflict in Tigray.
According to the US government, troops from Eritrea have apparently marched into the crisis region of Tigray in northern Ethiopia. A US State Department spokesman said there had been “credible reports” of an Eritrean military operation in Tigray. This is a “worrying development”. The soldiers would have to be “withdrawn immediately”.
In the wake of the military conflict between the breakaway region of Tigray and the Ethiopian central government, rockets were repeatedly fired at neighboring Eritrea. It was suspected that the People’s Liberation Front, TPLF, which had previously ruled Tigray, was behind these attacks. It could be an attempt to drag Eritrea into the conflict over Tigray.
The situation in the disputed Tigray region is dire. The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops to the breakaway region in early November. At the end of November he announced the capture of the regional capital Mekele. However, the TPLF, the People’s Liberation Front, which has ruled Tigray so far, announced that it would continue the fight.
The TPLF dominated politics in the East African country for three decades before Abiy came to power in 2018. She does not recognize Abiy, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. According to estimates by the International Crisis Group (ICG), which specializes in conflicts, several thousand people have been killed in the fighting in Ethiopia so far. Almost 50,000 fled to Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tigray depend on food aid.
Source: ntv.de, jru / AFP
