Ethiopia’s government has announced a ceasefire in the embattled northern region of Tigray after months of violence. The ceasefire should apply immediately, it said in a message on Monday evening. The interim government in Tigray’s capital Mekelle had previously spoken out in favor of a ceasefire. The announcement came as a surprise to many observers.
According to reports on Twitter that have not been officially confirmed, representatives of the Ethiopian central government are said to have left Mekelle in a hurry. The rising rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have reportedly already taken positions in the city. A TPLF spokesman told Reuters that Mekelle was under the control of the People’s Liberation Front. The BBC received information that people in Mekelle were already celebrating the withdrawal of government troops. An independent review of the reports was initially not possible.
The Ethiopian government said the ceasefire should allow farmers in Tigray to cultivate their fields and allow humanitarian organizations to work freely in Tigray. The ceasefire should initially apply until the end of the harvest season.
Hundreds of thousands in the insurgent province are threatened with starvation
UN Secretary General António Guterres phoned the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, according to the United Nations. Guterres then announced that he hoped for an end to the fighting. The situation in Tigray is “extremely worrying”. In November, the government in Addis Ababa began a military offensive against the TPLF, which until then had been in power in the region of the same name in northern Ethiopia.
The background to this were years of tensions between the TPLF and the central government. Other actors are now involved, including Eritrean troops and militias. Thousands of people were killed in the fighting, and both sides are accused of numerous human rights violations and war crimes. Tens of thousands have become refugees or fled to Sudan as a result of the fighting within Tigray.
According to the United Nations, around five million people in Tigray urgently need food aid, and 350,000 are threatened with starvation. For a long time, aid organizations did not have full access to all those in need because of the security situation and bureaucratic hurdles.