Yesterday, Saturday, the Tigray People's Liberation Front announced its complete control of the strategic city of Disi in the northern Amhara region of the country, but Addis Ababa denied this.
"The military command of Tigray has confirmed the full control of our forces over Disi" in the Amhara region, bordering Tigray region, a spokesman for the Front, Canada Gebrehiot, said in a tweet.
In turn, Reuters news agency quoted another spokesman for the LTTE, Getachew Reda, as saying that the fighters are heading to the city of Kombolcha after they expelled the government forces from Disi. He added that the LTTE fighters captured many Ethiopian soldiers.
Local media reported that the government forces withdrew from Disi after heavy fighting and power outages in parts of it.
Disi is hosting tens of thousands of displaced people since the escalation of fighting on the border between the regions of Tigray and Amhara (Reuters)
government denial
For his part, Ethiopian government spokesman Legisi Tolo told Reuters in a text message that Dessi is still under government control, and added that the allegations of the Tigrayan forces are "false propaganda."
On Saturday afternoon, the United States called on the Tigrayan forces to halt their advance "in and around Disi and Kombolcha", and renewed its calls to withdraw from the Amhara and Afar regions.
It was not possible to independently verify the account of either side.
The control of Disi represents a strategic gain for the Tigrayan fighters, in the face of the central government forces that are trying to drive them out of Amhara.
Disi is a large city about 385 km from the capital, Addis Ababa, which is the southernmost point in Amhara that the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front forces have reached since they entered the region last July.
The developments come about a year after clashes erupted on November 4, 2020, between the Ethiopian army and the "Popular Front", after government forces entered the Amhara region in response to an attack on an army base.
On the 28th of the same month, Ethiopia announced the end of what it described as a "law enforcement" operation by controlling the entire region, despite reports of continued human rights violations in the region since then, where thousands of civilians were killed.
The conflict has displaced more than two million people, and more than 60,000 have fled to neighboring Sudan, according to observers, while Khartoum says that their number has reached more than 71,000.