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Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took to Facebook on Sunday to appeal to his countrymen to take up arms to thwart the military offensive by Tigrayan forces in the northern region of the country.
Abiy, the former Nobel Peace Prize winner who went to war with Tigray after a local election during the COVID-19 outbreak, once vowed that the conflict would be resolved within weeks.
That has not happened. The war resulted in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and an untold number of war crimes that includes allegations of rape and ethnic killings.
The war has gone back and forth, with federal forces, with the aid of Eritrean forces, at one point appearing to be in the driver’s seat. But that all changed when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front dealt Addis Ababa a stunning defeat in June after retaking the region’s capital Mekelle after federal forces fled the city.
The Trends Journal has been reporting on the civil war when it began on 3 November 2020 and the deadly implications (See “ETHIOPIA AND SUDAN: TENSIONS RISING,” and “ANOTHER ETHNIC MASSACRE IN ETHIOPIA.”)
The humanitarian crisis in the country is considered the worst in the world. These are just a few of the many articles and trend forecasts we have made since then:
- “ETHIOPIA’S TIGRAY WAR HORRORS” (15 Dec 2020)
- “ETHIOPIA AND SUDAN: TENSIONS RISING” (26 Jan 2021)
- “ANOTHER ETHNIC MASSACRE IN ETHIOPIA” (4 May 2021)
- “ETHIOPIAN MILITARY CRISIS CONTINUES TO WORSEN” (29 Jun 2021)
Getachew K. Reda, a spokesman for the TPLF, took to Twitter to announce that Tigran forces “will continue to take all appropriate measures to break the siege on the ppl of Tigray.” The forces are believed to have taken the town of Kombolcha and Kemise, which is 200 miles from the capital.
DW.com reported that Addis Ababa has not confirmed these reports, but the advances have caught the attention of Abiy, who called on Ethiopians to use “any types of weapons…to block the destructive TPLF, to overturn and bury it.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the continued fighting in the country will only continue to worsen the crisis in the country. The TPLF fighters have been accused of killing 100 youths in Kombolcha, according to CNN. The TPLF denied the allegation.
“All parties must stop military operations and begin ceasefire negotiations without preconditions,” he said, according to the website.
TREND FORECAST: This Ethiopian civil war will continue to rage. The longer it lasts, more people will be escaping in efforts to find safe-haven nations. As economic conditions deteriorate across the continent, there will be strong anti-immigration populist movements in Europe to stop the flow of African nationals who will risk their lives to leave nations wracked by civil unrest, poverty, crime, government corruption and violence.