Fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region this week has raised fears of a return to full-scale war, just over three years after a peace deal ended a conflict that killed more than 600,000 people. Clashes in western Tigray prompted Ethiopian Airlines to cancel flights to the region on Thursday, and residents in the regional capital Mekele to rush to withdraw cash and stock up on food amid growing anxiety.
Clashes have taken place in recent days between Tigrayan forces and the Ethiopian federal army in the remote area of Tsemlet, western Tigray.
Occupied by the authorities of the neighbouring Amhara region since the war, this territory has been regularly plagued by fighting since 2023.
Diplomatic and government sources acknowledged that the clashes broke out in the disputed western Tigray earlier this week.
In a letter addressed to the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the Tigrayan interim administration calls for "immediate action to avoid an imminent war".
"The repercussions of a new conflict would be catastrophic and irreversible" and "would plunge the region into a wider conflict," it said.
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Shortage of cash
"Everyone is scared and still traumatised by the war," one resident of Mekele told RFI's correspondent, who had seen local people rushing to grocery stores to stock up.
Another resident, a 26-year-old man, told news agencies that he had unsuccessfully tried to send a package by air to his sister in Addis.
"I was told that flights have been cancelled starting from this morning. There is also a shortage of cash," he said, adding he had tried to withdraw money from a cash machine but that most were not working.
Ethiopian Airlines cancelled flights to Tigray on Thursday. "As of today, all flights have been cancelled," the official for Ethiopia's national carrier told news agencies, without giving a reason.
A senior Tigrayan official said the regional government had reached out to the federal capital Addis Ababa to seek an explanation for the flight cancellations, but had received no response.
A year after the ceasefire in Tigray, Ethiopia is little closer to peace
Fear of renewed conflict
Ethiopia's national army fought fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front for two years until late 2022, in a conflict that researchers say killed hundreds of thousands of people, and caused famine and the collapse of healthcare.
The war ended with a peace pact in November 2022, but disagreements have continued over a range of issues, including contested territories in western Tigray and the delayed disarmament of Tigrayan forces.
Western Tigray is claimed by both Amhara and Tigray as part of their region, although it is now controlled by Amhara forces and the Ethiopian military.
A journalist in Mekele told news agencies "there is increasing anxiety" but said they did not know the "intensity of fighting so far".
Senior officials from the Ethiopian and Tigrayan governments said they hoped for a de-escalation of tensions.
(with newswires)
