Rebels predict warm welcome in Ethiopian capital despite PM’S call to take up arms
Abiy Ahmed issues plea to citizens to defend Addis Ababa as Tigrayan forces threaten to overthrow him
‘Everyone should stand to safeguard their neighbourhood. We should be its keepers’
TENS of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed yesterday as rebel forces advancing on Addis Ababa confirmed they intended to enter the city and overthrow him.
The demonstration came after Mr Abiy warned Ethiopians to be ready to take up arms and make “sacrifices” to “salvage” the country, which has been locked in a brutal civil war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) for the past year.
To expect victory from “our army and its battle alone is foolishness”, Mr Ahmed said. “Unless we co-operate to defend against the threats posed cooperatively by our enemies, victory is unthinkable.”
The TPLF seized two strategic cities on the road to the capital last week and unveiled an alliance with other factions on Friday, aiming to remove the prime minister from power by force if necessary.
The rebels confirmed on Saturday that taking the city was not “an objective” but insisted they would not meet popular resistance if they did so to overthrow the prime minister.
“The story that the population in Addis is vehemently opposed to us is absolutely overstated,” Getachew Reda, a TPLF spokesman, told AFP. “The claim that Addis will turn into a bloodbath if we enter Addis is absolutely ridiculous.”
Residents of the city have been dusting off old Kalashnikov rifles and antique swords since Mr Ahmed issued his desperate call to arms on Saturday.
All citizens have been ordered to register any type of arms they own at nearby police stations and told to unite and “help the security” of their area. One local told The Sunday Telegraph that he had taken a Kalashnikov inherited from his father to the police amid fears that Addis Ababa – home to five million people – could fall in a matter of weeks.
“I am told if I am not going to make use of it, I have to hand it over to the district so they can make use of it,” he said.
So far “bombs and heavy weapons” have been handed in, alongside “antique swords and machetes”, a police spokesman said.
“Everyone should stand to safeguard their neighbourhoods. We should be the police of our own neighbourhood; we should be its keepers, and its defence forces,” Adanech Abiebie, Addis Ababa’s mayor, said.
In Addis Ababa, The Telegraph witnessed groups of young men being picked up and loaded onto trucks one day last week. That evening groups of youths carrying sticks roamed the streets.
The prime minister, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, sent troops into
Tigray in November last year to topple the TPLF, accusing them of attacking military bases.
Since then thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, causing the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade in the war-torn Tigray region.
“I am feeling that things must have gone out of hand since both the federal government and our city are asking us to defend our own neighbourhoods,” said one local, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“It has an implication that our defence forces are being defeated and dying out on the fronts.”
On Saturday, the US embassy in Addis Ababa urged Americans to leave Ethiopia “as soon as possible”, following the advice of the embassies of Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and others. The UN Security Council has called for a ceasefire, but neither side has responded.
The Ethiopian government declared a nationwide emergency on Tuesday.