Tigrayan forces fighting the central government are withdrawing from neighbouring regions in Ethiopia’s north, a Tigrayan forces spokesperson said on Monday, a step towards a possible ceasefire after major territorial gains by the Ethiopian military.
The 13-month-old war in Africa’s second-most populous nation has destabilised an already fragile region, sent 60,000 refugees into Sudan, pulled Ethiopian soldiers away from war-ravaged Somalia and sucked in armed forces from neighbouring Eritrea.
“We trust that our bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace,” wrote Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the rebellious Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party controlling most of the northern region of Tigray.
His letter to the United Nations also called for a no-fly zone for hostile aircraft over Tigray, arms embargoes on Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea, and a U.N. mechanism to verify that external armed forces have withdrawn from Tigray – all requests that the Ethiopian government is likely to oppose.
Thousands of civilians have been killed as a result of the conflict, around 400,000 are facing famine in Tigray and 9.4 million people need food aid across northern Ethiopia.
Debretsion said he hoped the Tigrayan withdrawal, from the regions of Afar and Amhara, would force the international community to ensure that food aid could enter Tigray. The United Nations has previously accused the government of operating a de facto blockade – a charge Addis Ababa has denied.
“We hope that by (us) withdrawing, the international community will do something about the situation in Tigray as they can no longer use as an excuse that our forces are invading Amhara and Afar,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda disclosed on Monday.