Ethiopia army, Tigray rebels clash, rebel authorities tell AFP

ADDIS ABABA: Fighting between the Ethiopian army and Tigray rebels took place in northern Ethiopia on Saturday, raising the spectre of a new war breaking out, a senior Tigray official told AFP.
“The federal government launched an attack this morning against Tigrayan forces in Shererina,” close to the border with Sudan, senior Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) official Amanuel Assefa said, adding that the combat was “still going on.”
For several months, federal and Tigrayan forces have been massed along the border of the northern Tigray region, while both sides have been accusing each other of seeking to trigger a new conflict.
The fighting, which involves “heavy artillery,” according to Amanuel, is taking place in western Tigray, a disputed area administered by nationalists from the neighboring regional state of Amhara.
The Ethiopian army’s spokesperson did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The TPLF in a statement Saturday, accused the federal army of “perpetrating against the people of Tigray for a long time” and having “escalated its destructive actions to a higher level it has launched a wide-ranging infantry offensive.”
Kjetil Tronvoll, a regional specialist at Oslo New University College, warned: “This is a clear military escalation and the most serious confrontation in northern Ethiopia for some time.”
“At this stage, the attack could represent either the start of a wider military campaign or a coercive show of force intended to deter the Tigrayan side from further escalation,” he told AFP.
Tigray, a region of around six million inhabitants, has emerged from a war that pitted the TPLF against Ethiopian forces backed by local militias and the Eritrean army. The conflict claimed at least 600,000 lives between 2020 and 2022, according to an African Union estimate.
The TPLF had ruled Ethiopia for nearly 30 years, before being challenged and then sidelined when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018. He was re-elected in June for a new term.