Ethiopia declared on Tuesday (2) a state of emergency for six months after insurgent forces in the Tigre region claimed they were gaining territory and considering marching in Addis Ababa.
The announcement comes two days after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed urged citizens to take up arms to defend themselves against the TPLF (Tiger People’s Liberation Front). Earlier in the day, authorities in the Ethiopian capital told residents to register their weapons and prepare to defend their neighborhoods.
The state of emergency was enacted after the TPLF considered a march to Addis Ababa, some 380 km south of their outposts, and claimed the capture, in recent days, of Dessie, Burka and Kombolcha, towns in the Amhara region. A government spokesman even contested the takeover of the sites, but later released a statement saying that TPLF “infiltrators” had killed 100 young people in Kombolcha.
The last time Ethiopia had resorted to this measure was in February 2018, six months before the transition of power to Abiy. At the time, the government imposed a curfew and restricted the movement of the population, in addition to carrying out thousands of arrests.
“Residents can gather in their neighborhoods,” the government said in a statement on Tuesday. “Those who have weapons but cannot act to protect their areas are advised to hand them over to the government or to close relatives and friends.” Justice Minister Gedion Timothewos said anyone who violates state-of-emergency rules could face three to ten years in prison.
Before the announcement, residents of Addis Ababa roamed the city normally and tried to buy food to stock up. The administrations of four of the ten regions of the country also called on the population to mobilize in the fight against the forces of Tigre, according to the state-owned Fana TV.
The conflict began in November 2020, when forces loyal to the TPLF seized military bases in Tigre, in the north of the country. In response, Abiy, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, sent troops to the region.
The TPLF dominated national politics for nearly three decades, but lost influence after the current prime minister took office in 2018 after years of anti-government protests.
Relations with the Tigre front, meanwhile, soured after Abiy was accused of centralizing power at the expense of the country’s regional administrations — a charge the prime minister denies.
​USA in alarm
The conflict in a country once considered by the US a stable ally in a volatile region has left some 400,000 people starving, thousands of civilians dead and more than 2.5 million displaced.
Jeffrey Feltman, US special envoy to Ethiopia, said on Tuesday that Washington was alarmed by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the north of the country and urged all sides in the dispute to find ways to ease tensions and allow the entry of help.
The American official also said that the White House sees the restrictions imposed by the Ethiopian government as responsible for preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the population, something the prime minister denies.
Also Tuesday, the Joe Biden administration accused Ethiopia of “serious violations of internationally recognized human rights” and said it planned to withdraw the country from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), an agreement that gives the country access to free US products. of taxes.
When Abiy came to power, he enacted important reforms, but human rights groups say many of those freedoms have been reversed.
The prime minister received the Nobel for ending a 20-year war with Eritrea, whose president is the arch-enemy of the TPLF. Troops from the country later entered Tigre to support Ethiopian forces.
The Eritreans withdrew their military from most of the region in June after several reports of serious human rights violations — they deny responsibility for any abuses.
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