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By Ben Farmer
Ethiopian government forces have recaptured the capital of a rebel stronghold, less than a fortnight after the country tipped back into a conflict many fear heralds a wider war in the Horn of Africa.
Leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) withdrew from the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle over the weekend, saying they wanted to spare it bombardment by approaching government forces.
The recapture represented a significant blow to the TPLF and six other rebel groups, which last month formed a Coalition of Survival vowing to oust Ethiopia’s Nobel Prize-winning leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The fighting has shattered a four-year-long ceasefire in the country and risks reigniting the 2020 to 2022 civil war between the government and the TPLF, which killed as many as 600,000 people.
Many analysts also fear the renewed fighting will quickly spill across borders as neighbouring Eritrea steps in to back the rebels.
The TPLF said it was pulling out of Mekelle “considering the indiscriminate bombardments the genocidal regime could carry out against our people and city”.
A statement said it would “operate from elsewhere to create a conducive environment for our army to enable it destroy the enemy”.
The withdrawal followed the TPLF’s capture of the city on Sep 23 and attacks it launched in the Afar and Amhara regions of the East African nation.
Yet analysts warned the TPLF could still wage a damaging insurgency using hit-and-run tactics against federal government forces even after withdrawing.
Addis Ababa, meanwhile, accuses Eritrea of supporting the rebel alliance alongside Sudan and Egypt. All three deny backing the rebels.
Mr Abiy won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which had been bitter enemies for two decades. Eritrea fought alongside the Ethiopian government against the TPLF in 2020, but the allies have since fallen out again.
Eritrea accuses landlocked Ethiopia of harbouring ambitions to seize its port of Assab.
Relations have plummeted, and last week the neighbours cut all diplomatic ties.
Abraham Belay, commissioner for the Ethiopian Nuclear Energy Commission, accused Eritrean troops of joining the uprising.
“The Eritrean army has taken part in the current fighting,” he said. “Many [Eritrean soldiers] were killed and weapons seized. There is no doubt the response will be double. It [Eritrea] will know from Ethiopia’s response the consequence of fighting alongside bandits and traitors.”
The US State Department said: “Increasing cross-border tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea have the potential to affect the entire region.
“The Horn of Africa cannot sustain another military conflict and humanitarian crisis.
“We strongly urge Ethiopia and Eritrea to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their neighbours, exercise maximum restraint and return to dialogue and cooperation as agreed in their 2018 peace framework.”
Ethiopia’s ties are meanwhile also badly strained with Egypt, which it also accuses of siding with the rebels.
Cairo has been angered by Ethiopia’s construction of a huge hydroelectric dam on the Nile, which it says threatens its own share of the river’s water.
