The “invasion forces have taken control of certain areas, including Shire, for the time being”, the rebel forces’ command said, calling on “all able-bodied Tigrayans to stubbornly defend” the region.
Two humanitarian sources confirmed to AFP the capture of Shire, without giving further details.
A town with 100,000 inhabitants before the conflict and located about 50 km from the border with Eritrea, a country bordering all of northern Tigray, Shire is home to an airport and is on a road linking Mekele, the regional capital, about 300km.
It is also home to thousands of Tigray residents displaced by the conflict that has ravaged northern Ethiopia since November 2020.
In recent days, the UN, African Union (AU), European Union (EU) and the United States, among others, have expressed concern about the intensification of military offensives in Tigray, particularly in Shire, the target of bombardments for several days.
Two civilians and an employee of the NGO International Rescue Committee (IRC) died there in one of these bombardments on Friday.
After a five-month truce that gave hope for negotiations, fighting resumed on August 24 in northern Ethiopia.
The conflict, which has pitted the Ethiopian federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed against the rebel authorities in Tigray for two years, is taking place virtually behind closed doors, with northern Ethiopia largely off limits to journalists.
But according to concordant sources, Tigray is currently caught in a pincer movement between, to the north, a joint offensive by Ethiopian and Eritrean armies from Eritrea, and to the south, Ethiopian troops aided by forces from the Amhara and Afar neighbors.
Nearly 40,000 people have been displaced in the Afar region by recent fighting on the border with Tigray, according to the latest situation report from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (Ocha).
-“Uncontrollable”-
On Tuesday, Redwan Hussein, Mr. Abiy’s national security adviser, assured on his Twitter account that “the conflict is not degenerating as some would like to describe it (…) it is diminishing and dying out”, implicitly responding to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who on Monday sounded the alarm.
“The situation in Ethiopia is spiraling out of control” and “violence and destruction are reaching alarming levels,” Guterres said, stressing the “terrible price paid by civilians” and the “nightmare” experienced by the Ethiopian population.
Mr. Guterres demanded “the immediate withdrawal and disengagement from Ethiopia of the Eritrean armed forces” which support the Ethiopian federal troops in Tigray and asked “all parties” to allow the passage of humanitarian aid, including the UN has suspended delivery since fighting resumed in late August.
“Hostilities in Tigray must cease now,” he insisted, following the similar call for “an immediate and unconditional ceasefire” launched on Sunday by the AU.
The Tigrayan rebels had replied on Sunday evening to be “ready to respect an immediate cessation of hostilities”.
Without responding directly to the AU’s call for a ceasefire, the Ethiopian federal government of the Prime Minister, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2019, justified on Monday its desire to continue its military operations in Tigray, while reaffirming his wish “for a peaceful resolution of the conflict through talks”.
The Ethiopian government said it was “forced to take defensive measures to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country” in the face of “repeated attacks” by the rebel authorities in Tigray, in “active collusion” with “hostile foreign powers”. .
“It is therefore imperative that the government of Ethiopia take immediate control of all airports, other federal infrastructure and facilities” in Tigray, explain the Ethiopian authorities.
The death toll of this war is unknown. But this caused a humanitarian disaster, displacing more than two million people and plunging several hundred thousand Ethiopians into conditions close to famine, according to the UN.
On Sunday, the head of the American Agency for Humanitarian Aid (USAID), Samantha Power, underlined “the staggering human cost of this conflict”.
