the situation continues to deteriorate.

Hostilities began on November 4, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the federal army to assault the breakaway region of Tigray after months of mounting tensions with regional authorities of the TPLF, the Liberation Front. of the peoples of Tigray, the party which rules the region and which for nearly thirty years controlled the political and security apparatus in Ethiopia.

Le Monde Afrique

the capital of neighboring Eritrea, Asmara, was hit on Saturday by rockets fired from Tigray.

The president of the region claimed responsibility for the attack yesterday.

to take off planes bombing Tigray, making it

Debretsion Gebremichael said, once again accusing the Eritrean army of being engaged in ground fighting in Tigray.

These shots against Asmara are a major escalation in the conflict in Tigray, a conflict which many observers fear not only that it will involve Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa

and mosaic of peoples, in an uncontrollable communal war, but also that it destabilizes the entire region of the Horn.

Jeune Afrique

Ethiopia and Eritrea faced each other in a deadly war between 1998 and 2000, when the TPLF was all-powerful in Addis Ababa.

The two countries remained at loggerheads until Abiy Ahmed became Prime Minister in 2018 and made peace with Asmara, which won him the Nobel Prize in 2019.

 although some fear that the country could sink into a total civil war which could spill over into the Horn of Africa, many hope that the operation against the The Tigray administration, led by the TPLF, will bring lasting peace.

Either way, the Ethiopian bi-weekly continues, there is a broad consensus that the conflict must end quickly in order to dispel the cloud of insecurity hanging over Ethiopia.

By wanting to put an end to this secession by launching an expeditionary force on Tigray, did Abiy Ahmed measure the consequences of such an equipment

?

Has he not rekindled a fuse

?

It's good to put down separatists, but for the moment he has dragged Asmara willy-nilly into the conflict, as the TPLF accuses Eritrea of ​​being complicit with Addis.

In addition, continues Today, a humanitarian disaster is looming with the exodus of over

20,000 refugees fleeing to Sudan and other neighboring countries.

And it is not over,

, the domino effect risks igniting a sub-region already plagued by repeated wars such as in South Sudan, and in countries in transition such as Sudan.

Decidedly, even nobelized, Ahmed Abiy seems to be a tragic hero

Today

He wants to do well, unfortunately, he is always overtaken by the old demons, by this morbid rivalry between Oromos and Tigrayans.

Will he be able to build a unified state, where the two ethnic entities will coexist without history

?

The case of Tigray will make school.

This war reveals one thing

still in Burkina Faso

: the Ethiopians have not yet succeeded in building the nation-state.

And this challenge is posed to practically all African countries.

It is this evil, one might say, which can explain many civil wars which have ravaged many African countries.

Because what matters in Africa is first and foremost the tribe and ethnicity.

In this country, in fact, we first think and breathe Amhara or Oromo or even Tigrayan.

It is this sad reality,

Le Pays, that makes Ethiopia a real ethnic powder keg.

And at the slightest spark, it can explode.