Oct 5 (Reuters) – Airstrikes and artillery fire rocked northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region overnight into Monday, aid sources said, in clashes between federal government and rebel forces that have raised fears of wider fighting.
Air attacks killed at least 17 people northwest of Tigray’s capital Mekelle – which federal government forces took over the weekend – according to a bulletin circulated among humanitarian groups.
The bulletin added that the government forces exchanged artillery fire with fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front – part of a rebel alliance aiming to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
Spokespeople for Abiy’s office, the federal Ethiopian National Defence Force and the TPLF did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reports, which Reuters could not confirm independently.
LEADERS OF ERITREA, EGYPT, SUDAN, SOMALIA MEET
Analysts say the fighting threatens to escalate into a wider conflict, with Ethiopia accusing neighbouring Eritrea and Sudan, and beyond them Egypt, of supporting the armed opposition. All three countries have denied this.
Last week, Ethiopia and Eritrea, which fought a border war from 1998-2000, severed diplomatic ties over the allegations.
On Sunday, the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia discussed the crisis during a meeting, according to two Egyptian security officials and one political official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
They agreed to coordinate military and intelligence efforts if the conflict escalated to the borders Ethiopia shares with Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia, the sources added, without going into further detail
The fighting since September 23 is the worst escalation of violence since a 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
On Monday morning, Ethiopia’s military and Tigrayan forces exchanged heavy artillery fire close to the Tekeze River near the town of Mai Tsebri, according to the humanitarian bulletin.
Overnight, airstrikes killed at least nine people in Adwa, which is about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Mekelle, and eight in Sheraro in northwestern Tigray, the bulletin said.
It did not say who launched the airstrikes.
Another aid worker confirmed the strikes in Adwa, but did not have information about casualties.
In Mekelle, which Tigrayan forces left without a fight, daily life was returning to normal, with shops reopening and phone and internet access returning a week-long disruption, residents said.
US WARNS ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA AGAINST CONFLICT
On Saturday, the US State Department urged Asmara and Addis Ababa to exercise restraint, warning that a conflict would jeopardise US collaboration with both countries.
Eritrean forces fought in support of Ethiopia’s federal government in Tigray during the 2020-2022 war following a 2018 normalisation of ties between the longtime foes that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.
Relations soured afterward, in part over landlocked Ethiopia’s public insistence that sea access is vital for its security and economy.
In a speech to parliament on Monday, Abiy emphasised the need to have access to the sea.
“Ethiopia’s modernisation cannot be realised without sea access,” he said after being sworn in for another five-year term following his Prosperity Party’s landslide victory in June’s parliamentary elections.
Eritrea says it fears Ethiopia will try to take its Assab port by force. Abiy has said Ethiopia intends to secure sea access through peaceful means.
(Reporting by Giulia Paravicini and Aaron Ross; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Heavens)
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