Tigray leader claims missile raid on Eritrea
Strikes on neighbouring capital as the violence from Ethiopia’s separatist conflict threatens to spread
‘As long as troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target and we will fire’
THE leader of Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region has claimed responsibility for rocket strikes on neighbouring Eritrea’s capital in an escalation of violence that risks engulfing the Horn of Africa.
Several missiles struck close to the airport outside Asmara, as violence from a conflict between leaders of the Tigray region and federal forces spilt over the border.
“I heard a loud blast and then suddenly people were running in all directions,” said one witness in Asmara. “It looked like long-range missiles.”
Yesterday, Debretsion Gebremichael, president of Tigray, claimed Ethiopian forces had been using Asmara airport, making it a legitimate target.
“As long as troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target and we will fire,” he said.
Tigray’s leadership has repeatedly accused Eritrea of lending support to Ethiopia’s troops in the conflict, a claim that both Ethiopia and Eritrea deny.
“As a sovereign nation, Ethiopia reaffirms its capability and resolve to manage and handle its own rule- of-law operation without any external intervention,” the government said yesterday. The conflict began on Nov 4, when
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning premier, launched an offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front after months of growing tensions.
Since then, hundreds have died and tens of thousands of refugees have fled across the border into Sudan.
Fears are mounting that the conflict will threaten a fragile peace with Eritrea and destabilise Somalia, where Ethiopian troops are now pulling out after helping fight an Islamist insurgency.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rules in the semi-autonomous region of five million people bordering Eritrea and Sudan. The Tigrayan minority dominated the government until Mr Abiy came to power in Ethiopia in 2018 but now complains they are persecuted.
Ethiopian authorities said their operations are aimed at “upholding the rule of law” in Tigray, accusing its leaders of seeking to destabilise the country and of committing atrocities.
More than 20,000 refugees have crossed into Sudan, sometimes walking for days. Many report intense fighting, air strikes and shooting in the streets of their hometowns. Details are impossible to verify, with roads to Tigray blocked and communications down.
At Mai-kadra, a few kilometres from the Sudan border, “scores, and likely hundreds” of people were stabbed or hacked to death last week, Amnesty International claimed, based on verified photos and videos of the scene and witness interviews.
Amnesty said it had not been able to independently verify who was responsible, although several witnesses blamed forces loyal to the Tigrayan leaders.
The missile strikes came after TPLF forces suffered battleground defeats in Western Tigray. By Tuesday, Ethiopian army forces had captured the strategic town of Humera, close to where the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Sudanese borders intersect. Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s dictator and an ally of Mr Abiy, is a sworn enemy of the TPLF. Tigrayan leaders have accused Eritrea of attacking them several times, although the accusations have not been verified.
Mr Abiy received the Nobel Prize in 2019, in part for his efforts to bring a lasting peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea after a border war in 1998 left nearly 100,000 people dead.