The US envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, will visit Ethiopia today, Thursday and Friday, to call for a peaceful solution in the country, after the fighting expanded there, as the Oromo Liberation Army announced that the entry of the fighters of the army allied with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, is only a matter of weeks.

While Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed vowed to thwart the country's transformation into something like Libya or Syria.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States is deeply troubled by the expansion of hostilities and violence in Ethiopia and is closely monitoring the situation.

Price indicated that the US administration has tools to put pressure on the Ethiopian government regarding the situation in the Tigray region.

The spokesman added in a press conference that the African Union and the United Nations have an important role in dealing with the crisis in Ethiopia.

The US spokesman reiterated Washington's demand for Eritrea to withdraw its forces from the Tigray region completely.

He also warned that any attempt by Ethiopia to obstruct the access of humanitarian aid to the region would be met with an appropriate response.

Within the framework of the US pressure tools, the Ethiopian government expressed its regret at Washington's decision to suspend the concessions of Addis Ababa in the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and indicated that concerns about human rights do not justify the suspension of the Ethiopian concessions in the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

In the context of international moves, the European Union's regional spokesman for the island expressed the union's concern about Ethiopia's slide into civil war, and called for an immediate ceasefire.

The Tigray Liberation Front said last Saturday and Sunday that it had captured two strategic cities, Disi and Kombolcha, 400 km north of the Ethiopian capital, and the front did not rule out advancing towards Addis Ababa.

weeks, not months

In the meantime, Oromo Liberation Army spokesman Oda Tarbi, in response to a question about the possibility of entering the capital, Addis Ababa, said, "If things continue at the current pace, then it will be a matter of months, if not weeks." And the same spokesman added that the fall of Prime Minister Abi Ahmed " It's settled."

The spokesman for the Oromo Liberation Army, which allied last August with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, said that the army entered several cities in the south of the strategic city of Kombolcha, including Kimisi, 320 kilometers from Addis Ababa.

In this context, the spokesman of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Getachew Reda, announced on Wednesday evening that the TPLF is moving side by side with the Oromo Liberation Army to advance in lands in Kimisi in the Amhara region.

"Joint operations will continue in the coming days and weeks," he said on Twitter.

These statements are a reiteration of what Reda confirmed to Agence France-Presse last July, when he said, "If we have to march to Addis Ababa to protect Tigray, we will do so."

The Tigray Liberation Front said last Saturday and Sunday that it had captured two strategic cities, Disi and Kombolcha, 400 km north of the Ethiopian capital, and the front did not rule out the advance towards Addis Ababa.


case of emergency

The Ethiopian government denied the two cities had fallen into the hands of the rebels, and on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in all parts of the country in the face of security threats represented by the rebels making field gains and approaching the capital.

The Addis Ababa authorities called on the residents to organize their ranks to defend the city by taking up arms and defending the capital's neighborhoods.

After the state of emergency was declared, it was reported that people from Tigray province in the capital were arrested on the basis of ethnicity and taken away by the police on Tuesday evening. their ethnicity.

The Ethiopian parliament is expected to ratify the state of emergency declared by the authorities, and this order will allow the authorities to recruit “any citizen of fighting age and possess a weapon,” or suspend media outlets suspected of “providing direct or indirect moral support” to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, According to the state-run Fana channel.

The Tigray Liberation Front spokesman described the measures announced by Addis Ababa as "a complete mandate to imprison or kill the Tigray Front elements."

Abi Ahmed accused the alliance of the Tigray Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Army of turning Ethiopia into something like Libya or Syria (Anatolia)

Abi Ahmed's statements

The Prime Minister of Ethiopia accused the alliance of the Tigray Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Army of turning Ethiopia into something similar to Libya or Syria, and vowed to thwart these endeavors, and said in a message marking the first anniversary of the start of the war in the northern Tigray region of the country, "They want to destroy a state, not build it."

Abiy Ahmed promised to bury his government's enemies "with our blood and our bones, and we will raise Ethiopia's glory anew."

The security environment in Ethiopia has been significantly deteriorated in the last several days with a continued escalation of armed conflict and civil unrest in Amhara, Afar and Tigray.

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— US Embassy Addis (@USEmbassyAddis) November 3, 2021

foreign embassies

Following the deterioration of the security situation in Ethiopia, the US Embassy in Addis Ababa renewed today its call on its citizens to prepare to leave the country, and also warned its citizens against traveling to Ethiopia due to the risk of an escalation of armed conflicts.

In a statement on its Twitter page on Wednesday, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Kuwaiti citizens in Ethiopia to leave immediately, and asked those wishing to travel to the African country to wait and postpone their travel.

On Wednesday, the Qatari embassy in Ethiopia called on Qatari citizens to leave the Ethiopian lands as soon as possible, and to take the highest degree of caution and caution due to the recent security events.

UN report

On the humanitarian side of the conflict in Ethiopia, the first UN investigation revealed that all parties to the conflict in the Tigray region have committed, to varying degrees, human rights violations, some of which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, presented some of what was stated in the joint UN-Ethiopia report, and said that civilians in Tigray "were subjected to brutal violence, and the joint investigation team revealed many violations, including extrajudicial killings, executions, torture, and sexual assault, ethnic violence, abuses against refugees, and forced displacement of civilians.”