ADDIS ABABA: Bombing, looting and skirmishes persisted in parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray on Saturday, a rebellious force in the northern region said after government troops declared they were within days of capturing the group’s leaders.
A month of fighting between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is believed to have killed thousands of people and driven some 46,000 refugees into neighboring Sudan.
Abiy’s government has said the conflict is winding down a week after it seized Tigray’s regional capital, Mekelle, but TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael told Reuters in a text message on Saturday there was still fighting outside the city.
He said federal forces bombed the town of Abbi Adi on Friday, without giving further details, while a TPLF spokesman accused government troops of looting in Mekelle.
“(They are) looting civilian properties, hotels and damaging factories after looting,” the spokesman Getachew Reda told a TPLF-owned TV station.
The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Most communications in Tigray are down and access to the area is severely restricted, making it hard to verify either side’s statements.
Abiy used to be a political partner of the TPLF — which dominated Ethiopia’s governing coalition for nearly three decades — but he irked his former allies by putting Tigrayan officials on trial for corruption and rights abuses.
They said the arrests were politically motivated, accusing Abiy of trying to tighten his grip over Ethiopia’s 10 semi-autonomous federal states. Abiy denies that, and has called the TPLF leaders criminals who mutinied against federal authority.
Army Col. Shambel Beyene said late on Friday that government forces were 10 km (six miles) away from a forest in the Gore area where Debretsion, Getachew and other TPLF members were thought to be hiding.
“We will only need a few days to get to them,” he said on state television.
Relief agencies, meanwhile, are worried about a lack of food, fuel, medicines and even body bags in Tigray. Convoys are on standby to take aid in.
Residents in the central town of Shire told a new government-appointed provisional administration that the cost of groceries was sky-rocketing and fuel shortages were grounding ambulances used to take patients to hospitals.
“Residents are still staying away from their homes. Women are hiding in caves with their children,” one man said at a meeting aired on EBC late on Friday.
Others complained about looting in the town.
Abiy’s government has said it will protect civilians in the northern region and ensure their needs are met.
“Work to rebuild Tigray has commenced with teams ... undertaking repair work (and) restoring services,” he said in a Tweet on Saturday.
Abiy, who took office in 2018, won a Nobel Peace Prize the following year for making peace with neighboring Eritrea and democratic reforms.
He began opening up a closed economy, loosening a repressive political system, and taking action against those accused of corruption and rights abuses — some of whom were Tigrayan officials.
His government has also jailed thousands of opponents after violent unrest, angering his rivals.
Fighting flares in Ethiopia’s Tigray as army says closing in on rebellious force
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Fighting flares in Ethiopia’s Tigray as army says closing in on rebellious force
- A month of fighting between PM Abiy Ahmed’s federal army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is believed to have killed thousands of people
- Ahmed's His government has also jailed thousands of opponents after violent unrest, angering his rivals
Ireland’s defense gaps exposed as EU presidency nears
- Militarily neutral Ireland is not a NATO member, yet its waters — seven times its landmass — account for around 16 percent of the EU’s total
THE CURRAGH: Sheep amble around steel fences skirting Ireland’s largest military base on a grassy plain west of Dublin, a bucolic scene masking an underfunded defense force struggling with outdated equipment.
Ireland’s threadbare military and its long-standing policy of neutrality are under heightened scrutiny as the country prepares to assume the rotating EU presidency from July.
“Ireland is the only EU country with no primary radar system, nor have we sonar or anti-drone detection equipment — let alone the ability to disable drones,” said former Irish special forces member Cathal Berry.
“We can’t even monitor the airspace over our capital city and main airport,” he said as he surveyed Ireland’s main military base at The Curragh.
Militarily neutral Ireland is not a NATO member, yet its waters — seven times its landmass — account for around 16 percent of the EU’s total.
Nearly three-quarters of transatlantic subsea cables run close to or beneath them.
But the Irish army numbers only a few thousand troops, is focused largely on UN peacekeeping missions and has neither a combat air force nor a sizeable navy.
Ireland’s annual defense spending of roughly €1.2 billion is the lowest in Europe at around 0.2 percent of the GDP, well below the EU average of 1.3.
“Neutrality itself is actually a fine policy. If you want to have it, it must be defended,” said retired Irish army colonel Dorcha Lee.
“That’s the whole point. Undefended neutrality is absolutely definitely not the way to go.”
Berry points to a long-standing “complacency” about defense in Ireland that has fueled a vacuum in debate over neutrality and military spending.
“If you wanted to squeeze the EU without any risk of NATO retaliation, Ireland is where you’d come,” he said, adding that also applied to US interests in Europe.
US tech giants like Google, Apple and Meta have their European headquarters in Ireland, supported by vast data centers that analysts say are vulnerable to cyberattacks.
European Council President Antonio Costa said he was still “confident” Ireland could protect EU summits during its presidency.
Defense Minister Helen McEntee has pledged that new counter-drone technology will be in place by then.
Speaking in front of a row of aging army vehicles at the Curragh military site, she also announced a broader increase in military spending, although the actual details remain unclear.
On Dec. 17, the Irish government said it plans to buy a military radar system from France at a reported cost of between €300 and €500 million (around $350-$585 million).
For Paul Murphy, a left-wing opposition member of parliament, “scaremongering over allegedly Russian drones with concrete evidence still unprovided” is
giving the government cover to steer Ireland away from neutrality toward NATO.
“But it’s more important than ever that we’re genuinely neutral in a world that is increasingly dangerous,” he told AFP.
Ireland has historically prioritized economic and social spending over defense investment, he said.
“Joining an arms race that Ireland cannot compete in would waste money that should be spent on real priorities like climate change,” he added.
Pro-neutrality sentiment still holds sway among the Irish public, with an Irish Times/Ipsos poll earlier this year finding 63 percent of voters remained in favor of it.
And very few voices in Ireland are calling to join NATO.
Left-winger Catherine Connolly, who won Ireland’s presidential election in October by a landslide, is seen as a pacifist.
“I will be a voice for peace, a voice that builds on our policy of neutrality,” she said in her victory speech.
