Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
has called on the public to "defend, repulse and bury the terrorist"
after two different groups fighting the government claimed they had seized
control of two strategic towns in Amhara region.
Tigrayan forces, who have been in
conflict with government forces for a year, said they had taken control of Dessie a strategic town and Kombolcha in the
Amhara region, located on one of the two major highways.
Spokesperson
for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Getachew Reda, told Reuters
that TPLF-led Tigray defense force (TDF) had seized the town of Kombolcha and
its airport in the Amhara region.
The
conflict between Tigrayan and Ethiopian government forces began a year ago
after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was the winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace
Prize, announced a military offensive to overthrow Tigray's regional
ruling party, TPLF.
Another
group of insurgents from Oromiya, Ethiopia's most populous region, said they
had also seized the town of Kemise, which is around 33 miles south of Kombolcha,
one of the country’s industrial zone.
Odaa
Tarbii, a spokesperson for the Oromo Liberations Army (OLA), said the group had
taken the town and were engaging government forces.
The
OLA is an outlawed splinter group of the Oromo Liberation Front, a formerly
banned opposition group that returned from exile after Prime Minister Ahmed
took office in 2018.
The
Oromo are Ethiopia's largest ethnic group and many of their political leaders
have been imprisoned under PM Ahmed's government.
In
August, the OLA and the TPLF announced a military alliance, placing increased
pressure on the central government of Ethiopia.
Following
the insurgent group's claims, PM Ahmed said in a Facebook post: "Our
people should march... with any weapon and resources they have to defend,
repulse and bury the terrorist TPLF."
On
Sunday, the Amhara regional government announced an 8pm curfew and urged
citizens to provide private vehicles to support its campaign against the forces
and orders the government institutions to suspend their regular activities.
It
said in a statement: "All government institutions must suspend their
regular activities and should direct their budget and all their resources to
the survival campaign....officials on every level should mobilise and lead...to
the front."
A
deadly conflict erupted between Tigrayan and Ethiopian government forces last
November, and thousands of people have since been killed and more than two
million citizens have been forced to flee the region.
Tigrayan
forces were initially beaten back but recaptured most of Tigray in July. They
then pushed into the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds
of thousands more civilians.
Tigrayan
forces have said they will keep fighting until Amhara forces leave the heavily
fortified area of western Tigray, and until the government permits the free
movement of aid into the rest of Tigray.
In
parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, people now eat only green leaves for days.
At a health center last week, a mother and her newborn weighing just 1.7 pounds
died from hunger. In every district of the more than 20 where one aid group
works, residents have starved to death.
For
months, the United Nations has warned of famine in this embattled corner of
northern Ethiopia, calling it the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. Now
internal documents and witness accounts reveal the first starvation deaths
since Ethiopia’s government in June imposed what the U.N. calls “a de facto
humanitarian aid blockade.”
Forced
starvation is the latest chapter in a conflict where ethnic Tigrayans have been
massacred, gang-raped and expelled. Months after crops were burned and
communities stripped bare, a new kind of death has set in.
The
United Nations has previously accused the government of a de facto blockade of
Tigray and says around 400,000 people are living in famine conditions there.
The
government of Ethiopia denies blocking aid.
By Agelgl , Reuters and Sky news
0 Comments