Eritrea will withdraw its troops from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Friday, a potential breakthrough in a protracted conflict that has seen atrocities against civilians.
The announcement comes as Abiy, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019, faces increasing pressure to end fighting in which both Eritrean and Ethiopian troops are accused of abuses, including mass murder and rape.
Abiy sent troops to Tigray on November 4 after blaming the region’s once dominant ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), for attacks on army camps.
For months, both Addis Ababa and Asmara denied Eritrean troops in Tigray, contradicting accounts from residents, aid workers, diplomats and even some Ethiopian civilian and military officials. Abiy finally acknowledged Eritrea’s role in a legislature appearance on Tuesday, and then flew to Asmara on Thursday to meet with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki.
During the visit, “the Eritrean government has agreed to withdraw its forces from the Ethiopian border,” Abiy said in a statement posted on his Twitter account on Friday.
“The Ethiopian National Defense Force will take over the protection of the border areas with immediate effect.”
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not immediately respond to a request for comment by e-mail.
Massacres
Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war that began in 1998 that left tens of thousands dead and resulted in a stalemate of two decades.
Abiy won his Nobel largely to initiate a surprising rapprochement with Isaiah after taking office in 2018, but Eritrea and the TPLF remained bitter enemies. Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, Abiy said the “Eritrean people and government were doing a lasting service to our soldiers” during the Tigray conflict.
His statement on Friday noted that the TPLF had fired rockets at Asmara several times, “thereby provoking the Eritrean government to cross Ethiopian borders and prevent further attacks and maintain its national security.”
Yet Abiy has only acknowledged that Eritrean troops took over areas along the border, including trenches dug during the border war, after being abandoned by Ethiopian soldiers.
Rights groups and Tigrayan residents have described a much deeper Eritrean presence. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Eritrean troops of killing hundreds of Tigrayans in a massacre in November in the city of Axum.
The Agence France-Presse (AFP) has separately documented a massacre allegedly carried out by Eritrean troops in the city of Dengolat, also in November. During a visit this month to the city of Wukro, just 50 kilometers north of the regional capital of Mekele, residents told AFP that Eritrean soldiers were still present and sometimes Ethiopian uniforms went to hide.
Abiy told lawmakers that any abuse by Eritrean soldiers would be “unacceptable” and said he had raised the issue “four or five times” with Asmara.
“Useless” announcement
Tigrayan opposition party Salsay Weyane Tigray said on Friday that any agreement on Eritrean’s withdrawal would be “useless” without “an international oversight body to control.”
“It’s another level of fraud; a game they have been playing for a long time “, says Hailu Kebede, head of the party’s foreign affairs department, on Twitter. “Pull out all forces and set up an international observatory. The world must not be deceived again.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for the withdrawal of Eritreans as well as forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which has played a key role in securing parts of western and southern Tigray.
However, Amhara officials say these parts of Tigray rightly belong to them. Abiy claimed victory in Tigray in late November after Ethiopian troops captured Mekele, but TPLF leaders are still on the run and fighting continues.
