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Tigray conflict
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tigray conflict is an ongoing armed conflict that began in November 2020 in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, between two sides: the Tigray Regional Government that is led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF); and forces supporting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, with the latter also receiving support from president Isaias Afwerki's Eritrean Forces.
To distance the country's politics from ethnic federalism, Abiy merged the ethnic and region-based parties of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which had governed Ethiopia for 30 years, into the new Prosperity Party. The TPLF, a politically powerful entity that had dominated Ethiopian politics during those 30 years, refused to join the new party, and alleged that Abiy Ahmed became an illegitimate ruler by rescheduling the general elections set for 29 August 2020 (which Abiy postponed twice before from the regular May 2020 election date, before COVID-19) to an undetermined date in 2021 due to COVID-19.
The TPLF, led by Chairman Debretsion Gebremichael, went ahead with regional elections in Tigray in September 2020 in defiance of the federal government, which declared the Tigray election illegal. Several journalists were barred by the federal government (at Addis Ababa airport) from traveling to cover Tigray's regional election. Fighting between the TPLF and the Federal Government began with the 4 November attacks on the Northern Command bases and headquarters of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in Tigray Region by TPLF aligned security forces and with attacks by the ENDF in the Tigray Region on the same day, that federal authorities described as a police action.
The federal forces captured the Tigrayan capital Mekelle on 28 November, after which Prime Minister Abiy declared the Tigray operation 'over'. The TPLF stated that it would continue fighting, until the 'invaders' are out. |