Abiy Ahmed opens a new front in Ethiopia, on the Sudanese border

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

REUTERS / Kumera Gemechu

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2 min

While the Ethiopian army has been fighting the dissident TPLF party in Tigray province for more than a month and a half, since last week it has also been engaged with the Sudanese army on the border between the two countries.

This is the time chosen by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to conduct a new operation in the state of Benishandul Gumuz, in the west of the country.

He intends to rid the region of terrorist groups.

But this operation raises fears of an escalation.

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With our correspondent in Addis Ababa,

Noé Hochet-Bodin

Province of more than one million inhabitants with a complex ethnic structure, Benishangul Gumuz has been the scene of numerous abuses in recent months.

Most of the victims are members of the Amhara minority present in the region.

From Addis Ababa, the authorities blame two groups accused of sowing chaos.

The Tigray Liberation Fronts (TPLF) and Oromo (OLF), both described as terrorists by the government.

Abiy Ahmed made the trip to announce a " 

special strategy 

" to control the region without specifying its outlines, but everything suggests that it will be by force.

The Prime Minister was indeed accompanied by the Army Chief of Staff, and door-to-door campaigns have already started.

We can fear that this operation has a strong ethnic dimension in view of the already existing conflicts between communities, also in view of the particularly violent vocabulary used by certain nationalists against the Gumuz and Berta ethnic groups, the majority in the province.

Finally, it should be noted that this province is strategic for Addis Ababa because it is there that

the great dam on the Nile is located

, the future largest dam in Africa.

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  • Ethiopia

  • Sudan

  • Abiy Ahmed