The Ethiopian government has launched a “staggering” ground offensive against rebel Tigrayan forces, according to a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, reigniting a devastating civil war that international humanitarian groups say imperils hundreds of thousands.
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TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said in an interview that there was active fighting Monday on at least three fronts in the Amhara region against the troops of the Ethiopian army and Amhara regional militias, involving a combination of soldiers, drones, tanks and airstrikes.
The fighting marked an escalation in Ethiopia’s nearly year-long civil war as the international community has ratcheted up calls for an end to the violence that has pushed hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine. Months earlier, the Tigrayan rebels had pushed the government forces out of their province and taken up positions in the neighboring Amhara region.
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Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, did not directly respond to questions about the offensive but told The Washington Post that the government “has a responsibility to protect its citizens in all parts of the country from any acts of terrorism.”
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“The government of Ethiopia will continue to counter the TPLF’s destruction, violence and killings in the Amhara region and elsewhere,” she said.
The conflict in Tigray, which is in Ethiopia’s north, began in November 2020 when Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, launched a military offensive against the TPLF, a regional political party that had ruled Ethiopia for three decades before the current government came to power in 2018.
In a statement, the TPLF characterized the new fighting as “Abiy’s final offensive to reinvade Tigray,” which the TPLF has largely controlled since June.
“Despite repeated appeals by the international community as well as the Government of Tigray to find a peaceful resolution of the current crisis, the Government of Ethiopia has once again chosen to continue its genocidal war on Tigray,” the TPLF said in a statement.
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Since November 2020, the war has displaced roughly 2 million people and led the United Nations to warn that at least 400,000 people are at risk of famine caused by a “de facto humanitarian blockade.”
Abiy’s government has been defiant, denying reports that it is preventing food from reaching the embattled region and earlier this month expelling seven senior United Nations officials who the government accused of “meddling” in their affairs. At his swearing-in ceremony last week for a second five-year term, Abiy described the forces from Tigray as “hateful” toward the nation and accused some in the international community of betraying the Ethiopian government.
The expulsion of the U.N. officials drew sharp condemnation from the world body and the Biden administration, which has said it is prepared to impose financial sanctions on those “prolonging the conflict in northern Ethiopia.”
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Getachew said the offensive was not altogether surprising, because of a recent escalation of force by the government, including airstrikes that began late last week on TPLF forces in the Amhara region.
He said in a tweet that there was fighting in the Amhara region towns of Wegeltena, Geregera, Wurgessa and Haro.
“The current campaign is quite enormous,” Getachew said. “But we will definitely stand our ground and more.”
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