The New York Times: Ethiopia and Eritrea ... Yesterday's enemies are today's allies fighting a common enemy in Tigray

The New York Times said that forces from Eritrea are fighting in the midst of the war raging in northern Ethiopia between the government army and the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

The newspaper added in a report, citing officials and eyewitnesses, that the Eritrean forces wreaked havoc and devastation in the refugee camps, committing human rights violations.

As fighting raged last month in the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia), a group of nomadic soldiers landed in Hitsats, a small village surrounded by rugged hills and housing refugees in an estimated 25,000 people.

In a report by two of its correspondents in Nairobi, the newspaper stated that those refugees came from Eritrea - whose borders are located 48 kilometers from that region - in a mass exodus "to escape the rule of their tyrannical leader (Isaias Afwerki), who is one of the longest-ruling tyrants in Africa."

After the refugees thought that they were safe in Ethiopia, as the Eritrean soldiers stormed their camp on November 19, and soon chaos, looting and bloodshed prevailed for several days, and that situation ended when the soldiers sorted dozens of refugees and forced them to cross the border and return to Eritrea According to the accounts of a number of eyewitness accounts.

For weeks, however, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed denied that soldiers from Eritrea - the country that for so long had been hostile to his country and fought a fierce war against it - had entered the Tigray region, where the Ethiopian government army has been fighting since early November to quell the rebellion of local leaders there, And specifically the Tigray People's Liberation Front

Ethiopian-Eritrean coordination

The newspaper says that it has interviewed a number of aid workers, refugees, United Nations officials and diplomats - including a senior American official - who confirmed that Eritrean soldiers are fighting in Tigray, apparently in coordination with Abiy Ahmed's forces, who are facing credible charges of committing atrocities against Civilians.

Among those targeted by those forces were refugees who had fled Eritrea and its "brutal leader" Isaias Afwerki.

The New York Times considered that the deployment of Eritrean forces in Tigray contributed to tarnishing the reputation of Abiy Ahmed, who rose to prominence last year after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of his efforts to achieve peace with the state of Eritrea and its president Afwerki.

However, Awal Allo, a professor of law at the University of Kiel in Britain and a former supporter of Abiy Ahmed, before turning into a critic of him, said that the Ethiopian Prime Minister "brought in a foreign country to fight against his people, and the consequences of that are dire."

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed stresses that he was forced to quickly mobilize his army in Tigray after the rebellion of the regional leaders against his government, who controlled the country for 27 years, before Abiy Ahmed took over the reins of power.

Since then, the military campaign against Tigrayans has been led by a mixture of forces made up of the Federal Army, ethnic militias and Eritrean soldiers.

The New York Times quoted aid workers as saying that Eritrean soldiers in the village of Hezats clashed at first with local militias from Tigray in battles that took place in the refugee camp, killing dozens, including 4 Ethiopians who were working with the International Rescue Committee and the Danish Refugee Council.

The chaos worsened after days of those battles, and the Eritrean soldiers were engaged in acts of looting and plundering that included relief materials, stealing cars and setting fire to agricultural fields and the neighboring woods area where the refugees were being logged, and not even the main water tank in the camp was spared from ruin.

The administration of US President Donald Trump asked Eritrean forces to leave Tigray immediately after the spread of reports of looting, killing and other potential war crimes.

The New York Times indicated in its report that Ethiopia and Eritrea were bitter enemies, as they fought a devastating war on their borders in the late 1990s, which claimed 100,000 lives.

Afewerki is the biggest victor in this (French) war.

The

greatest victor.

Abiy Ahmed had previously declared his victory in Tigray, denying the deaths of civilians, which the American newspaper considered an "unbelievable claim."

The biggest victor - in the opinion of the newspaper - is Afwerki, an ally of Abi Ahmed. Since he came to power in 1993, the Eritrean president has gained a reputation as a "tyrannical and ruthless figure who interferes in the affairs of other countries to exercise his influence."

At one point, he supported the "extremist Islamic" al-Shabab movement in Somalia, which brought him international sanctions, before turning his allegiance to the Emirates, which the report describes as a state that hates Islamists.

After the conclusion of the peace agreement between their two countries, the relationship of Abiy Ahmed and Afruqi with each other became stronger, and their common hostility to the rulers of Tigray increased, according to the newspaper.

Both had reasons that led him to distrust the Tigrayan minority. For Abiy Ahmed, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was a dangerous political opponent. As soon as he became prime minister, he began to publicly underestimate his authority.

As for Isaias Afwerki, his hostility to Tigray dates back to the seventies of the last century, when Eritrea was fighting for independence from Ethiopia, and the disputes widened after 1991 when Eritrea gained independence and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front took over in Ethiopia, which ignited a devastating border war between the two countries .