For Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the conflict in Tigray is an operation to "maintain order".

He reaffirmed this defense on Friday, November 27, after a meeting organized in Addis Ababa with the special envoys charged by the African Union (AU) with mediation in the conflict in Tigray.

Abiy Ahmed on Thursday ordered the army to launch the "last phase" of the military operation launched on November 4, with the attack on Mekele, the capital of the dissident region in northern Ethiopia.

The Tigrayan leaders, from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), are entrenched in Mekele, now surrounded by federal forces and which before the start of the conflict had some 500,000 inhabitants.

The international community, worried about the consequences of an assault on civilians and possible "war crimes", is trying to put pressure on Abiy Ahmed.

But he firmly rejected any "interference in the internal affairs" of his country.

"Constitutional responsibility to maintain order"

Among other initiatives, the AU, headquartered in Addis Ababa, has appointed three special envoys, former Mozambican presidents Joaquim Chissano, Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and South African Kgalema Motlanthe, who arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday.

The Ethiopian government promised to meet them "out of respect", but had politely declined this offer of mediation in advance, like all previous ones.

On Friday, the Prime Minister expressed in a statement his "gratitude" to the South African Head of State, Cyril Ramaphosa, who holds the rotating presidency of the AU, and to the special envoys, for their commitment to propose "African solutions to African problems".

But he also recalled that his government had "the constitutional responsibility to maintain order (in Tigray) and across the country", stressing the patience it has long shown in the face of "provocations" and "the agenda of destabilization "of the TPLF.

The UN, the Vatican and France call for peace

In the evening, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged in a statement "the parties" in Ethiopia "to seize the vital opportunity" of African mediation "to peacefully resolve the conflict" in Tigray.

On Thursday, the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Demeke Mekonnen, had at the same time continued the diplomatic tour started ten days ago to defend the position of the government, by meeting in Paris the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

At the end of this interview, the head of French diplomacy declared in a statement condemning "ethnic violence" and called for "measures to protect civilian populations".

Pope Francis has launched "to the parties to the conflict a call to end the violence, to save the lives, in particular of civilians, so that the populations can find peace," the Vatican said in a statement on Friday.

No precise record of the fighting in Tigray has so far been available, but at least several hundred people have been killed.

More than 43,000 Ethiopians have fled to neighboring Sudan, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. 

On Friday, UNHCR said it had airlifted 32 tonnes of emergency aid to Sudan - including blankets, mosquito nets, and solar lights.

A second shipment is due to arrive on Monday.

On Friday, 24 hours after the order given to the federal army, it was not possible to know whether the offensive against Mekele had actually started.

Regional authorities said Friday that the federal army was bombing "(their) towns and (their) villages", "inflicting heavy damage", without specifically mentioning Mekele. 

"Our struggle will continue in all directions and strengthen until the self-determination of the people of Tigray is guaranteed and the invader is driven out of Tigray," they said in a statement read on Tigray television. TV.

"We call on the people of Tigray as always to fight and defend themselves against our enemies."

Dark situation on the ground

Verification on the ground and from an independent source of the assertions of either side is difficult, as Tigray has been virtually cut off from the world since the start of the conflict.

On Thursday, Ethiopian state-run television EBC said TPLF leaders were holed up in various locations in Mekele, including a cement factory, museum and auditorium, communicating "by military radio."

Spearheading the armed struggle against the military-Marxist regime of the Derg, overthrown in 1991, the TPLF then controlled the political and security apparatus of Ethiopia for almost 30 years.

Gradually removed from power in Addis Ababa by Ahmed Abiy from the moment he became Prime Minister in 2018, the party continues to dominate its stronghold of Tigray.

Tensions between Mr. Abiy and the TPLF have continued to grow, culminating in September with the organization in Tigray of a regional election described as "illegitimate" by Addis Ababa, then with the attack in early November, according to the report. government, of two bases of the federal army by the forces of the TPLF, which denies the latter.

With AFP

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