Africa-Press – Ethiopia. More than 50,000 people have been displaced by fighting in a disputed region of northern Ethiopia, the UN said, ten days after the start of clashes between fighters from the regions of Tigray and Amhara.
This renewed violence is causing international concern. On Saturday, several embassies in Ethiopia, including France, Britain, Germany and the United States, said they were “concerned by reports of violence in disputed areas of northern Ethiopia”, and had “called for de-escalation and protection of civilians.”
“The number of people displaced by armed clashes in the city of Alamata and the woredas (administrative subdivision, editor’s note) of Raya Alamata, Zata and Ofla since April 13 and 14 has reached more than 50,000,” the agency said humanitarian agency (Ocha) in a report published Monday evening, citing local authorities.
Around 42,000 of them fled towards the south, notably around the town of Kobo, and 8,300 towards the locality of Sekota in the north, details Ocha, stressing that the majority of displaced people are “women, children , young people and old people.
Alamata and neighboring districts are located in the Raya zone, contested between the Tigray and Amhara regions, where clashes between fighters from these two ethnic groups broke out around ten days ago.
Administratively attached to Tigray in the 1990s, the areas of Raya (southern Tigray) as well as that of Wolkait (western Tigray) have been claimed for decades by the Amhara ethnic group.
Militias and “special forces” from the Amhara region entered there in November 2020, when a conflict broke out between the Tigrayan authorities of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government, and installed their own administration.
According to a peace agreement signed between the federal government and TPLF in November 2022 in Pretoria, the Amhara forces were to withdraw.
The exact identity of the fighters involved in the recent clashes remains unclear.
On Wednesday April 17, the regional authorities of Amhara accused the TPLF of “carrying out an invasion (…) in complete violation of the Pretoria agreement”, demanding that these forces “quickly leave the areas they control” .
The day before, the president of the interim administration of Tigray, Getachew Reda, had spoken on X about “events in southern Tigray, and other occupied territories”.
He affirmed that they did not arise from a “conflict between the federal government and the interim administration/or the TPLF”, nor from “a conflict between the administrations of Tigray and Amhara” but were the work “tenacious enemies of (the) Pretoria agreement”.
The situation on site is impossible to verify, with federal authorities restricting access to the region.
According to Ocha, “as of April 22, the security situation in the towns of Alamata, Woldiya and Kobo remained calm following the intervention of federal forces”, but was uncertain in the northern part towards Sekota.
Although initial humanitarian aid has been deployed by the federal government and local NGOs, “the responses do not meet the growing needs,” adds OCHA.
Amhara nationalists have been in conflict with the central government since the announcement in April 2023 by the Addis authorities of their desire to dismantle the “special forces”, illegal paramilitary units set up by several regional states in Ethiopia for around fifteen years. ‘years.
Amhara nationalists accuse the government of wanting to weaken their region.
Since then, clashes have repeatedly pitted militias and Amhara “special forces” – who had been a valuable ally of the Ethiopian army against the Tigrayan rebels – against the army.
Faced with an increase in violence, the federal government declared a state of emergency in August 2023.
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