Guerrilla insurgency downplayed

ETHIOPIA’S government has denied that northern forces whom its troops have fought for a month would be able to mount a guerrilla insurgency, while diplomats said a UN team was shot at while trying to visit a refugee camp.

Federal troops have seized the regional capital Mekelle from the former local ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and declared an end to their month-long offensive.

But TPLF leaders say they are fighting back in Mekelle. Ethiopia experts fear a drawn-out insurgency with a destabilising impact around east Africa.

“The criminal clique pushed a patently false narrative that its fighters and supporters are well armed, posing the risk of protracted insurgency in the rugged mountains of Tigray,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“It also claimed that it has undertaken a strategic retreat with all its capability and regional government apparatus intact. But the criminal clique is thoroughly defeated and in disarray, with insignificant capability to mount a protracted insurgency.” The TPLF did not respond.

With communications largely down and access for humanitarian workers and media restricted, it has not been possible to verify claims from all sides on the state of fighting.

A UN security team seeking to access Shimelba refugee camp, one of four for Eritrean refugees in Tigray, was blocked and fired at on Sunday.

The two diplomatic sources declined to give more details, saying the full circumstances were unclear. There was no immediate comment from the government, TPLF or UN.

The conflict, which has its roots in Abiy’s pushback against Tigrayans’ past dominance of federal government and military posts, is thought to have killed thousands of people.

It has also sent nearly 50 000 refugees fleeing to Sudan, seen TPLF rockets fired into Eritrea, stirred ethnic divisions, and led to the disarming of Tigrayans in Ethiopia’s peacekeeping contingency combating al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

The UN and aid agencies are pressing for safe access to Tigray, which is home to more than 5 million people and where 600 000 relied on food aid even before the war. But aid officials said looting and lawlessness meant the region was still too dangerous to dispatch convoys..