Prime minister vows to join fight

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says he will lead his country’s army “from the battlefront” beginning Tuesday, a dramatic new step by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner in a devastating war.

“This is a time when leading a country with martyrdom is needed,” Abiy said in a statement on social media Monday night. With rival Tigray forces moving closer to the capital of Addis Ababa, his government declared a state of emergency earlier this month.

An estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war between Ethiopian and allied forces and fighters from the country’s breakaway Tigray region. The United States and others have warned that Africa’s second-most populous country could fracture and destabilize the whole Horn of Africa.

The statement by the prime minister, a former soldier, does not say where exactly he will go Tuesday.

His statement also claims that the West is trying to defeat Ethiopians, the latest pushback against what his government has described as meddling by the international community.