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| Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed |
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ethiopia’s national army launched a ground offensive against forces from the northern region of Tigray on Monday, the war-torn region’s governing Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said.
TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda said the army alongside allied forces from the northern Amhara region began the attack to push Tigrayan forces out of Amhara in the morning.
Asked if an operation had been launched, Billene Seyoum, spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said the Ethiopian government had a responsibility to protect its citizens in all parts of the country from any acts of “terrorism”.
“The government of Ethiopia will continue to counter the TPLF’s destruction, violence, and killings in the Amhara region and elsewhere,” she added, without elaborating.
The new offensive has shattered a ceasefire that Ethiopia’s government declared in June as its forces retreated from Tigray, where it had been pursuing the Tigray leaders who had dominated the national government for 27 years before Abiy took office and sidelined them.
Thousands of people have been killed since the political dispute turned deadly in November last year.
Amhara and Tigray have a decades-long dispute over territory after Tigray enlarged its borders a quarter of a century ago to include fertile farmlands also claimed by the Amhara region.
The Amhara regional spokesman signaled on Twitter last week an offensive against Tigrayan forces could be imminent, and since Friday there have been heavy air raids reported in several Tigrayan-held areas of Amhara.
Meanwhile, Getachew, the TPLF spokesperson, said the Ethiopian military with the support of Amhara special forces “launched coordinated offensives on all fronts”. He said there was fighting in the Amhara region’s Wegeltena, Wurgessa, and Haro towns.
The fighting since November 2020 has displaced millions of people and forced hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans into famine a situation the United Nations has blamed on a government blockade. The government has denied that it is blocking aid.
The fighting has made about 5.2 million people in Tigray more than 90 percent of the population and another 1.7 million people in Afar and Amhara dependent on food aid.
The new fighting defies calls for peace by the United Nations and others, and the threat of new sanctions from the United States and European Union.
“Our forces have no other option than to defend their people,” the Tigray statement said. — NNN-AGENCIES