San Francisco Chronicle

Army blasts conflict as ‘ unexpected and aimless’

- By Elias Meseret and Cara Anna Elias Meseret and Cara Anna are Associated Press writers.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s army said Thursday the country has been forced into an “unexpected and aimless war” with its wellarmed Tigray region, while Tigray asserted that fighter jets had bombed areas around its capital — a marked escalation with little sign of the two sides willing to talk to calm the crisis.

Ethiopia’s army deputy chief said military forces are being sent to the fighting in Tigray from other parts of the country.

“The army will not go anywhere,” Birhanu Jula told reporters, amid fears that the conflict would spill into other regions of

Africa’s secondmost populous nation. “The war will end there.”

For his part, the Tigray region’s president, Debretsion Gebremicha­el, told reporters that “we are in position to defend ourselves from enemies that waged war on the Tigray region. … We are ready to be martyrs.”

The strong words came a day after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the nation the military will carry out further operations this week in response to an alleged deadly attack on a military base by the regional government.

Observers warn that a civil war in Ethiopia involving Tigray could destabiliz­e the already turbulent Horn of Africa. The prime minister, awarded the Nobel Peace

Prize last year for his sweeping political reforms, now faces his greatest challenge in holding together a country of some 110 million people with multiple ethnic and other grievances.

Ethiopia has imposed a sixmonth state of emergency on the Tigray region, which played a dominant role in the country’s government and military before Abiy took office in 2018. Since then the region, feeling marginaliz­ed, has split from the ruling coalition and defied Abiy by holding a regional election in September that the federal government called illegal.

 ?? Mulugeta Ayene / Associated Press ?? Ethiopian Orthodox Christians light candles and pray for peace in the Tigray region during a church service in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Mulugeta Ayene / Associated Press Ethiopian Orthodox Christians light candles and pray for peace in the Tigray region during a church service in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States