The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has denied Thursday that the Eritrean Army has completed its withdrawal from the Tigray region, as indicated by the African Union (AU), and pointed to its presence in the town of Shire.
«The fact is that Eritrean forces are still in Tigray, not on the borders,» said Kindeya Gebrehiwot, a senior official of the group, in response to claims by AU mediator for the conflict, Olusegun Obasanjo.
He pointed on his Twitter account to «a recent photograph showing Eritrean forces in Shire» and stressed that «Tigray has handed over heavy weapons and Eritrean and non-Ethiopian Army forces should have left Tigray as agreed».
In this line, TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda stressed that the neighboring country’s forces are still in Tigray and regretted that the AU «should go there and do its job before making such statements».
Obasanjo said last week in an interview with the Financial Times magazine that «all Eritrean forces» deployed in Tigray to support the military offensive against the TPLF had withdrawn from the region.
The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 following a TPLF attack on the main army base located in Mekelle, after which the Abiy Ahmed government ordered an offensive against the group. The outbreak of fighting followed months of political and administrative tensions, including the TPLF’s refusal to recognize an electoral postponement and its decision to hold regional elections outside Addis Ababa.
The TPLF accuses Abiy of whipping up tensions since coming to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to accede to office. Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within Ethiopia’s ruling coalition since 1991, the ethnically-supported Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, which it saw as an attempt to undermine its influence.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
