TIGRAY, Ethiopia
Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa could fall within "months if not weeks", an Oromo group allied with Tigrayan rebels said Wednesday, as Washington announced it would send a US envoy to the country to hold talks.
Young pro-TPLF soldiers. Ethiopia’s war in Tigray, officially known as the Law Enforcement Operation, has been costly both in terms of finances and human life. |
The Tigray People's
Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been fighting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's
government for a year, has claimed significant territorial gains in recent
days, along with its ally the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
As fighting has dragged
on, reports of massacres, mass rapes and a starvation crisis have emerged, with
the UN rights chief on Wednesday denouncing extreme brutality after a joint
UN-Ethiopian report warned of possible "crimes against humanity" by
all sides.
In Washington, the US
State Department said it was sending Jeffrey Feltman, special envoy for the
Horn of Africa, to the country this week.
He will hold talks on
Thursday and Friday to urge "all Ethiopians to commit to peace and
resolution of grievances through dialogue," it said.
Earlier Wednesday, OLA
spokesman Odaa Tarbii said his group intended to topple Abiy's government,
calling his removal "a foregone conclusion."
"If things
continue in the current trajectory, then we are talking about a matter of
months if not weeks," he said.
TPLF spokesman Getachew
Reda announced late Wednesday that the rebels were working alongside OLA to
capture territory in Kemissie in the Amhara region, some 325 kilometres (200
miles) from Addis Ababa.
"Joint operations
will continue in the days and weeks ahead," Getachew said on Twitter.
Ethiopia declared a
nationwide state of emergency Tuesday and ordered residents of Addis Ababa to
prepare to defend their neighbourhoods.
Abiy on Wednesday urged
citizens to back the war effort and accused the rebels of trying to turn
Ethiopia into Libya and Syria, as anxious residents of the capital voiced
support for the government's measures.
"They are enemies
of Ethiopia and they need to (be) dismissed, and to do that all of us need to
cooperate with the state of emergency," said Azmeraw Berhan, a
self-employed man.
Under the state of
emergency, authorities can conscript "any military-age citizen who has
weapons" or suspend media outlets believed to be "giving moral
support directly or indirectly" to the TPLF, according to state-affiliated
Fana Broadcasting Corporate.
Getachew said the
measures amounted to a "carte blanche to jail or kill Tigrayans at
will".
Two lawyers monitoring
arbitrary detentions of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa told AFP Wednesday they had
received reports of dozens of people, and likely many more, rounded up by city
police since the emergency was declared, some of whom were taken from their
homes.
A joint investigation
by the office of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet and the Ethiopian Human
Rights Commission (EHRC) published Wednesday found evidence of "serious
abuses and violations" by all sides in the conflict.
"The gravity and
seriousness of the violations and abuses we have documented underscore the need
to hold perpetrators accountable on all sides," Bachelet said.
The report, which
covers the period from November 3, 2020, through June, pointed to
extra-judicial executions, endemic torture and sexual violence among other
abuses, and said that "a number of these violations may amount to crimes
against humanity and war crimes".
It detailed reports of
gang rapes against women and girls, as well as men and boys.
It recorded the deaths
of at least 29 civilians in shelling by Ethiopian forces targeting Tigray's capital
Mekele on November 28, as well as revenge killings in Mai-Kadra following the
town's capture by federal and Amhara forces after a massacre of ethnic Amhara
residents last year.
Bachelet's office said
it had also tracked abuses committed after the period covered in the report,
including the deaths of 47 civilians at the hands of TPLF fighters in the
village of Chenna in Amhara in September.
Abiy said the report
presented no evidence of genocide but Bachelet said the findings were not so
clear-cut and called for further investigation.
International
alarm
Abiy sent troops into
Tigray a year ago in response, he said, to TPLF attacks on army camps.
The 2019 Nobel Peace
laureate promised a swift victory, but by late June the rebels had retaken most
of Tigray and expanded into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara.
In recent days the TPLF
has claimed control of two key cities in Amhara, about 400
kilometres north of Addis Ababa.
The government has
denied claims of TPLF territorial gains which, if confirmed, would represent a
major strategic advance.
Much of northern
Ethiopia is under a communications blackout and access for journalists is
restricted, making battlefield claims difficult to verify independently.
The escalating conflict
has sparked alarm among the international community, with thousands killed and
hundreds of thousands forced into famine-like conditions, according to the UN. -
AFP
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