In Ethiopia’s civil war, Tigrayan forces take the offensive
The conflict has entered its most dangerous phase yet
The streets of Dessie, in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, are loud and bustling. So are its restaurants and bars. But as Ethiopia’s civil war edges closer, the mood is darkening. In the past week military-training camps have sprung up. Outside a hospital a tent has been erected; wounded soldiers lie on stretchers. Through mountain fog come the screams of ambulance sirens. Such is the tension gripping the place that when your correspondent visited, he was arrested almost immediately and held for several hours.
The jitters are because rebels from Tigray are advancing fast and meeting weak resistance. As The Economist went to press, the fighting was drawing near to Weldiya, a strategically important town about 80km north of Dessie. To the west they have penetrated to within perhaps 80km of Gondar, Ethiopia’s historic capital (see map).
A few weeks ago, when the insurgents captured most of the Tigray region, including Mekelle, the capital, there may have been a chance for a negotiated end to Ethiopia’s civil war and accompanying humanitarian crisis. Instead, the war may be entering its most dangerous phase yet.
Even so, the Tigrayans’ gamble is also risky. Rather than focus on reclaiming disputed territory occupied by Amhara forces in the west, they are attacking on many fronts—and risk overstretching themselves. Tigrayans make up only about 7% of Ethiopia’s population. Amharas alone outnumber them four to one.
Securing the road to Djibouti, moreover, is no easy feat. The scorching deserts of Afar are harsh terrain and, beyond their own borders, Tigrayan forces cannot rely on widespread local support. The fighting in Afar has already forced tens of thousands of civilians from their homes. The resistance may be stiffening. Federal troops backed by Afar paramilitary forces seem to have halted the Tigrayan advance in the east. “Invading Afar was a historic mistake,” argues Dawud Mohammed Ali, a local academic.
The second risk is political. When the tplf arrived in Addis Ababa in 1991 as a band of guerrillas who had toppled Ethiopia’s then military dictatorship, it could count on support from many of Ethiopia’s more than 80 ethnic groups. But after almost three decades in charge of the government in Addis Ababa, it has few friends left. Many would regard any move towards the capital as a brazen attempt to put itself back on the throne.
Despite the dangers, neither side in the war appears especially interested in talks to end it. The tplf, believing it can smell victory, wants a transitional government to replace Abiy. The prime minister, for his part, insists that the tplf must be defeated entirely. Many Ethiopians agree with him. Yet much blood has been spilled trying to do this, even as the government’s prospects have inexorably worsened.
www.economist.com:This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Down from the mountains”