<\/p>\n
By Aymeric Vincenot<\/p>\n
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia \u2013 Ethiopia said on Tuesday its forces had seized three towns in war-stricken Tigray in an advance that coincides with UN warnings of a spiralling conflict and an \u201cutterly staggering\u201d toll on civilians.<\/p>\n
International calls for a halt to the escalating violence in Tigray have been mounting since a failed attempt by the African Union earlier this month to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table and find a peaceful solution to the near two-year conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ENDF (Ethiopian National Defence Force) has taken control of the towns of Shire, Alamata and Korem without fighting in urban areas,\u201d the government said in a statement, adding that it would work with humanitarian agencies to provide aid to the areas now under army control.<\/p>\n
The announcement was issued by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s government after the rebel Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the strategic city of Shire and other areas had fallen to \u201cinvading forces\u201d.<\/p>\n
Troops from Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea had been waging an offensive near Shire for several days, with international alarm over the human cost of the renewed combat in Tigray.<\/p>\n
Shire, home to about 100 000 people before the conflict, lies around 300 kilometres (180 miles) by road northwest of Tigray\u2019s capital Mekele and about 50 kilometres from the border with Eritrea.<\/p>\n
The Tigrayan statement said artillery strikes by the rival forces in areas they reached had killed or injured many civilians, and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing.<\/p>\n
It is not possible to verify battlefield claims as Tigray is under a communications blackout and access to northern Ethiopia is restricted for journalists.<\/p>\n
\u2018Alarming levels\u2019 of violence<\/strong><\/p>\n Fighting resumed between pro-government forces and the TPLF in late August, with both sides blaming the other for shattering a five-month truce that had allowed limited amounts of aid into Tigray and raised a glimmer of hope for peace.<\/p>\n On Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the situation was \u201cspiralling out of control\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cViolence and destruction have reached alarming levels,\u201d he said, calling for the \u201cimmediate withdrawal and disengagement\u201d of Eritrean forces.<\/p>\n The European Union, the United States and the AU have also issued urgent appeals for a halt to the fighting, which is threatening the stability of the continent\u2019s second most populous nation and the wider Horn of Africa region.<\/p>\n Washington and Brussels have also voiced particular concern about the presence of troops from Eritrea, whose forces were accused of brutal atrocities during the early phase of the war that first erupted in November 2020.<\/p>\n In two years of war, untold numbers of civilians have been killed, an estimated two million people driven from their homes while millions more are in need of aid, according to UN figures.<\/p>\n Tigray and its six million people are virtually cut off from the outside world, facing dire shortages of fuel, food and medicines and lacking basic services, including communications and electricity.<\/p>\n \u2018Risk of escalation\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Abiy\u2019s government had said in a statement Monday it was \u201ccommitted to the peaceful resolution of the conflict through the AU-led peace talks,\u201d without addressing a call by the bloc for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n But it also accused the TPLF of colluding with unnamed \u201chostile foreign powers\u201d and said it would pursue \u201cdefensive measures\u201d to protect Ethiopia\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is thus imperative that the Government of Ethiopia assumes immediate control of all airports, other federal facilities, and installations in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Abiy\u2019s national security adviser Redwan Hussein insisted on Twitter that the conflict was not \u201cspiralling\u2026 Now it\u2019s just being extinguished and degenerating\u201d.<\/p>\n But the UN\u2019s new high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, warned of a \u201csignificant risk of escalation\u201d as more troops and soldiers were mobilised.<\/p>\n Air and artillery strikes in Tigray since August have inflicted an \u201cutterly staggering\u201d toll on civilians, he said in a statement issued in Geneva.<\/p>\n Among those killed in recent incidents was a staff member of the International Rescue Committee aid group, who was part of a team delivering humanitarian assistance to pregnant women and malnourished children.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder international law, indiscriminate attacks or attacks deliberately targeting civilians or civilian objects amount to war crimes,\u201d Turk warned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Aymeric Vincenot Addis Ababa, Ethiopia \u2013 Ethiopia said on Tuesday its forces had seized three towns in war-stricken Tigray in an advance that coincides with UN warnings of a spiralling conflict and an \u201cutterly staggering\u201d toll on civilians. International calls for a halt to the escalating violence in Tigray have been mounting since a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}