Is the humanitarian truce announced five months ago in Ethiopia just a memory? On Wednesday August 24, fierce fighting pitted Tigrayan insurgents from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against Ethiopian federal forces on the outskirts of Tigray province, at war since November 2020, raising fears of a return to all-out confrontation. in northern Ethiopia.
On whose initiative did the fighting resume? For what reasons ? It was initially impossible to determine the causes of this new outbreak of fever. The two armies, which have been facing each other silently since April, reject responsibility for this new military campaign. This confusion is aggravated by the fact that telecommunications are cut off in Tigray and that the Ethiopian federal army has banned the media from discussing the military operations in progress.
According to the Tigrayan military command, the federal forces launched a “Massive Offensive” against Tigray, at dawn on Wednesday, when the province has been under blockade for more than a year. The government would have “amassed Special Forces soldiers from the Amhara region, Fanos [combattants nationalistes] and militiamen, these last five days” on the borders of Tigray. Troop movements confirmed by several diplomatic sources.
In Addis Ababa, the seat of the Ethiopian government, the authorities of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accuse the TPLF of having broken the humanitarian truce. “The government is forced to adopt the necessary measures to respond to the harassment of the TPLF”can we read in a press release dated August 24.
Like an admission of failure
For now, military operations are spread out over two fronts. The first clashes took place around Raya, a disputed territory at the southern tip of Tigray. This is where most of the fighting takes place. But the Tigrayan forces would also be engaged in the Afar region, to the east. They had, for several months, occupied whole sections of this border province of Djibouti through which humanitarian aid passes.
The war has not, however, resumed throughout the Tigrayan territory; neither on its western border nor on its northern border where the threat of the Eritrean army hovers. “It is very difficult to say today if it is just an ultra-violent one-upmanship or if the conflict is already out of control”says a diplomat based in Addis Ababa.
“I am deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the resumption of hostilities in Ethiopia. I would like to call for an immediate cessation of fighting and a resumption of peace talks,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as an admission of failure. Three weeks ago, the American and European special envoys for the Horn of Africa nevertheless visited the Tigrayan leadership in the provincial capital Mekélé to discuss the modalities of peace talks. But in five months of truce, the international community has been unable to bring the two parties to a compromise.
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