These discussions must take place under the aegis of the African Union, while the progressive forces have recently accentuated their offensive in the tiger.
Le Monde with AFP
The Tigrean rebels have announced that it has arrived in South Africa, where peace talks with the Ethiopian government should start, on Monday, October 24 to find a solution to the war that has ravaged the northern country for two years. The delegation of the federal government left Addis Ababa in the morning, announced the government’s communication service on Twitter, saying that these discussions under the aegis of the African Union (AU) are “an opportunity to resolve peacefully the conflict and to consolidate the improvement of the situation on the ground permitted by the sacrifices of the army “.
Tigrean rebels and the federal army, supported by neighboring Ethiopian regions and Eritrea forces, has faced each other since November 2020 in a murderous conflict that has plunged northern Ethiopia into a deep humanitarian crisis .
A spokesperson for the Tiger rebel authorities, Kindeya Gebrehiwot, announced in the night on Twitter the arrival of a delegation. He also repeated the rebel requests for “immediate cessation of hostilities, humanitarian access without hindrances and withdrawal from Eritrean forces”. Previous talks, summoned in early October in South Africa by the AU, had long given up before even starting, against the backdrop of organizational problems.
Thursday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that war was going to “end and peace away”. “We are not going to continue to fight indefinitely,” he said, without however mentioning the next discussions and while the progressive forces have recently accentuated their offensive in the tiger.
Intensification of the fighting
After five months of truce, the fighting resumed on August 24. The Ethiopian and Eritrean forces seized Shire last week, one of the main cities of the Tiger. A humanitarian source told AFP that intense fighting took place on Friday in Selekelka, between Shire and Aksoum, another major city in the tiger and ancient site listed as World Heritage of Humanity.
The international community has been alarmed by the recent intensification of fighting. The UN Security Council and the AU’s peace and security council both held meetings on the subject on Friday. The spokesperson for the US State Department Ned Price stressed that these meetings “demonstrate the great concern of the international community” and renewed American calls for a resumption of humanitarian aid and the withdrawal of Eritrean troops.
The war began in November 2020, when Abiy Ahmed sent the army to the Tiger to dislodge the regional authorities who disputed his authority and that he accused of having attacked military bases. The exact assessment of this conflict, which takes place largely in camera – journalists who do not have access to the region – is unknown. The American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Friday that “the extent of the fights and the dead compete with what we see in Ukraine”. According to her, “in two years of conflict up to half a million people have died”.