Ethiopian Forces Say They Have Taken Mekelle
Ethiopia’s government forces say they have seized Mekelle, the Tigrayan capital, after a week of intense fighting. The claim comes a day after federal troops regained the Alula Aba Nega airport on the city’s eastern approach, and after a local journalist reported that the TPLF’s fighters and leaders were leaving. It has not been independently confirmed.
If it holds, this is the fastest reversal of the war so far. Tigrayan forces launched their offensive on 23 September and took three airfields; ten days later the government says it has the regional capital. The claim should be read as a government claim until somebody in Mekelle says otherwise, and the pattern of this conflict has been that each side announces its gains first. What is not in doubt is the scale of what has come apart: the Pretoria agreement of November 2022 held for nearly four years and is now gone, with simultaneous fronts in Tigray, Amhara and Afar, at least 52 civilians killed in the north, and an explosion reported at the defence ministry in Addis Ababa on Thursday. The Afar front is the one that threatens the state itself, because the road up from Djibouti carries almost all of Ethiopia’s imports, fuel included. Eritrea severed diplomatic relations with Addis Ababa on 1 October and denies arming the TPLF. Laura Hammond of SOAS has warned there is a strong possibility Asmara becomes more involved on the ground if the fighting continues, and a risk it inflames relations inside Sudan. Watch for the TPLF’s own account of where its government now sits.