04/04/2022 Etiopia
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AFDERA, Ethiopia – A new front in Ethiopia’s war in the Afar region is imperilling efforts to get enemies to sit down to peace talks, three regional officials and three diplomats said, and a ceasefire declared last week may have been breached in some places. The flare-up of violence in Afar this year came after fighting in the neighbouring regions of Tigray and Amhara had ground to a stalemate and as moves were gathering pace to get the government in Addis Ababa and Tigrayan rebels to agree to peace negotiations. “There cannot be peace in Ethiopia while there is fighting in Afar,” said Mussa Ibrahim, a clan leader in Erepti, one of six districts in Afar currently occupied by Tigrayan forces. On Thursday, Ethiopia announced a unilateral ceasefire, the second to be called in a 16-month conflict that has displaced millions of people and plunged hundreds of thousands into famine conditions. But Afar police commissioner Ahmed Harif told Reuters on Monday that fighting was ongoing in two of the six districts occupied by Tigrayan fighters, and there was a “significant” buildup of Tigrayan forces along the border.
Two humanitarian workers confirmed the fighting.
Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which is battling the government, denied there were clashes in those areas. He did not comment on accusations of a military buildup. The TPLF previously said it would observe the ceasefire if aid was speedily delivered. The last time the government declared a unilateral ceasefire in July, following months of battles that forced the military out of Tigray, the TPLF dismissed it as a “joke” and continued fighting, saying key conditions for peace had not been met. The TPLF and Afar forces dispute who started the most recent round of fighting in the northeastern region, which flared up in mid-January. The regional government estimates 300,000 people have had to abandon their homes. The TPLF says they were responding to attacks on Tigray by Afar forces and allies, while Afar officials say Tigrayan forces were the aggressors. Among those who fled the violence was Ayisha Ali, whose home town of Berhale came under attack in early February. Speaking at a warehouse that serves as a rudimentary camp for the displaced in Afdera, some 130 km to the southeast of her home, she did not know what had happened to her seven children, after her family scattered amid the chaos. Twelve other relatives were killed when their huts were struck by explosions, she said. Among them were her sister, her sister’s five children and a pregnant cousin. Ayisha blamed Tigrayan forces. “We couldn’t even bury them; their bodies were in pieces,” she told Reuters. “The heavy weapons were firing at us, and we … ran away.” Two neighbours, speaking at the camp, also described heavy fighting and civilian deaths. Reuters could not independently verify Ayisha’s or her neighbours’ accounts. Getachew, the TPLF spokesman, did not respond to questions about the killing of civilians in Berhale and elsewhere in Afar. The group has previously denied targeting civilians.
Biography of a Bomb
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