Will the conflict between the Ethiopian federal forces and Tigray spill over beyond national borders?
Rockets fired from the Tigrayan region hit the capital of neighboring Eritrea, Asmara, on Saturday, November 14.
This escalation reinforces fears that the internal conflict in Ethiopia extends beyond its borders, as the two countries already waged a deadly war between 1998 and 2000.
Two Addis Ababa-based diplomats who requested anonymity told AFP that several rockets fell near Asmara airport on Saturday.
Paris-based Eritrean opposition radio station Erena, citing residents of Asmara, also reports that four "missiles" hit the capital of Eritrea.
The president of the region led by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been challenging the authority of the Ethiopian federal government for several months, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on Sunday (November 15th).
"Ethiopian forces are also using Asmara airport" to take off planes bombing Tigray, making it "a legitimate target," Debretsion Gebremichael told AFP, further accusing the Eritrean army to be engaged in ground fighting in Tigray.
This is not the first accusation of the Tigrayan authorities.
The Tigray Forces Command had already accused Eritrea of lending a hand to the Ethiopian federal army by letting its air force take off from Eritrean territory, but also by intervening militarily in the fighting in Tigray at the request of Addis Ababa.
Tigray's "reprisals" against Asmara
He had threatened to fire missiles in "retaliation" against Asmara and Massaoua, an Eritrean port on the Red Sea.
On Saturday November 14, the Command had already claimed to have fired "missiles" on Friday evening at the airports of Bahir Dar and Gondar, two localities in the Ethiopian region neighboring Amhara.
According to him, Ethiopian planes which bombard the region take off from there.
"Whether the attacks start from Asmara or Bahir Dar (...) there will be reprisals, we will fire missiles at selected targets, in addition to airports", warned the spokesperson for the Central Command of the Tigray, Getachew Reda, speaking on local television Demtsi Woyane TV.
While Tigray leaders regularly accuse Eritrea of being involved in the ongoing conflict, the blackout imposed on the region and travel restrictions for journalists make it impossible to verify the claims of either side.
Eritrea is the sworn enemy of the TPLF, a party that represents the Tigrayan minority and has controlled the political and security apparatus in Ethiopia for almost 30 years.
Major escalation and war with Eritrea
The shooting at Asmara constitutes a major escalation in the conflict in Tigray.
And many observers fear it is dragging Ethiopia - Africa's second most populous country - into an uncontrollable communal war.
And that it destabilizes the whole region of the Horn of Africa, Eritrea in particular may be tempted to settle old scores with the TPLF.
Ethiopia and Eritrea clashed 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 earned him the Nobel Prize in 2019.
Abiy Ahmed gradually removed the TPLF from power and tensions between them did not stop growing… until the military intervention he launched on November 4 in Tigray, he said, to re-establish "legitimate institutions there. ".
"Massacre" of civilians in Tigray
Even though the TPLF assures us that "the conflict does not concern Amhara civilians", tensions are recurrent between the Amhara and the Tigrayans (6% of the country's population), who have clashed violently in the past.
Thousands of Amhara militiamen have already joined Tigray to lend a hand to the Ethiopian federal army against the TPLF, according to Amhara regional authorities.
On Thursday, Amnesty International denounced a "massacre" of civilians in Tigray, citing witnesses who claim that the victims were Amhara and were killed by TPLF forces, which Tigray President Debretsion Gebremichael denied.
Washington calls for "immediate de-escalation"
The United States on Friday called "strongly" for "immediate steps towards de-escalation" in Ethiopia's dissident Tigray region, in order to achieve "an end to the conflict."
The United States strongly condemns the TPLF's unjustifiable attacks against Eritrea on November 14 and its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray.
We continue to urge immediate action to protect civilians, deescalate tensions, and restore peace.
- Tibor Nagy (@AsstSecStateAF) November 15, 2020
“We condemn the massacre of civilians in Mai-Kadra,” in southwestern Tigray, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy said on Twitter.
"It is essential that peace be restored and that civilians are protected," he added.
With AFP
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