Tigray rebels announce withdrawal from two regions of Ethiopia in bid for ‘peace’
Tigrayan rebel forces fighting the central government are withdrawing from neighboring regions in northern Ethiopia, a spokesman for the Tigrayan forces said on Monday, a step towards a possible ceasefire after 13 months of brutal warfare. .
“We are confident that our bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace,” wrote Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that controls most of the northern Tigray region.
His letter to the United Nations called for a no-fly zone for hostile aircraft over Tigray, imposing arms embargoes on Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea, and a UN mechanism to verify that external armed forces had withdrawn from Tigray.
Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The war in Africa’s second most populous nation has destabilized an already fragile region, sending 60,000 refugees to Sudan, driving Ethiopian soldiers away from war-torn Somalia and absorbing the army of the neighboring nation of Eritrea.
Thousands of civilians have died, around 400,000 are facing famine in Tigray and 9.4 million people are in need of food aid in northern Ethiopia as a result of the conflict.
Debretsion said he hopes that the withdrawal of Tigrayan, from the Afar and Amhara regions, will force the international community to ensure that food aid can enter Tigray.
The United Nations has previously accused the government of operating a de facto blockade, a charge the government has denied.
“We hope that by withdrawing (we), the international community will do something about the situation in Tigray as they can no longer use as an excuse that our forces are invading Amhara and Afar,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters.
TPLF also requests the release of prisoners, war crimes investigations
Other proposals in the letter include the release of political prisoners (the government has detained thousands of Tigrayans) and the use of international investigators to prosecute those responsible for war crimes.
Last week, the United Nations agreed to establish an independent investigation into rights abuses in Ethiopia, a move strongly opposed by the Ethiopian government.
International mediators, including the African Union and the United States, have repeatedly tried to negotiate a ceasefire between the two sides to allow aid to enter Tigray, but both sides refused until certain conditions were met.
Conflict erupted last year between the federal government and the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018.
In June, the military withdrew from Tigray after reports of mass killings of civilians, gang rapes and blocking of aid supplies. The government has said it has prosecuted individual soldiers, although it has not provided details.
In July, Tigrayan forces invaded Afar and Amhara. The Ethiopian army launched an offensive in late November that pushed back the Tigrayan forces hundreds of kilometers.
(REUTERS)
