A member of the Amhara Special Forces watches over the border crossing with Eritrea in Humera, Ethiopia.
Photographer: Eduardo Soteras / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Eduardo Soteras / AFP / Getty Images
A week after reaching an agreement with the Ethiopian Prime Minister to withdraw from the Tigray region of the country, Eritrean forces have shown no signs of departure.
According to Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, whose forces have fought against a coalition of Ethiopian federal, Amhara regional and Eritrean forces in Tigray, the forces have not left the area or expressed any intention to leave. past five months.
“They didn’t leave,” Getachew said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “In fact, there is no intention on the side of the Eritrean regime to withdraw its troops.”
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced last week that Eritrea had agreed to withdraw its forces days after declaring their presence in the region. The announcement followed increased diplomatic pressure and allegations related to it crimes committed in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
In fact, since the announcement of Abiy’s tweet about Isaias’ Agreement to withdraw its troops, Eritrea has increased the influx of its troops into Tigray by leaps and bounds, ”Getachew said, referring to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. Withdrawal is “unthinkable” for the survival of Abiy and the Eritrean president, Getachew said, and that tens of thousands of Ethiopian troops have died.
Abiy, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to resolve a long-standing border dispute with Eritrea, ordered a raid on Tigray after the region’s administrators, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front troops, military camp in the region. The decline in violence followed months of tensions between federal and regional authorities.
The European Union and the United Nations have condemned the reported atrocities in Tigray, and the latter came out G-7 Foreign Ministers issued a statement on Friday saying, “We condemn the killing of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary shelling and the forced displacement of Tigray residents and Eritrean refugees.”
The months of fighting have caused at least $ 1 billion in damage to the infrastructure in Tigray, according to the Ethiopian government.
The Eritrean and Ethiopian authorities have not confirmed the withdrawal. The Eritrean Ministry of Information and the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to questions.