Tigray forces beaten in Afar; Tigrayans deny

ETHIOPIA

Ethiopia’s federal government has said rival forces from the war-hit Tigray region had been beaten in neighbouring Afar region and had withdrawn, but the Tigrayan forces said they had simply redeployed troops to nextdoor Amhara region for an offensive there.

“The TPLF force has left Afar,” foreign ministry spokesperson Dina Mufti told reporters at a news conference in the capital, Addis Ababa, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled Ethiopia for three decades but was the northern region’s ruling party when fighting broke out in November 2020.

“According to a military information, they were defeated and they left,” he said.

Tigrayan spokesperson Getachew Reda, speaking to Reuters news agency by satellite phone from an undisclosed location, said the Ethiopian authorities had only now realised Tigrayan forces had withdrawn.

“We were not defeated.

There was no fighting in Afar so we made troop movements from there to the highlands in adjoining Amhara region,” he said.

It was not immediately possible to verify either claim.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman told a news conference in Addis Ababa that the Tigrayan forces had been “routed” in the Afar region by the military and the region’s militia forces, which she said had closely collaborated and inflicted heavy losses on the Tigrayan forces.