The Tigrayan rebels claimed Sunday to have taken Kombolcha, a strategic city in the north of Ethiopia, after that of Dessie the day before, claims denied by the government, according to which “heavy fighting” was still underway with the federal forces.
“We are firmly in control of #Kombolcha,” Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (FLPT), said on Twitter. This victory, if confirmed, would constitute another important step for the rebels who have been at war with the government for a year. The FLPT had already managed to retake most of Tigray from federal forces in June, before continuing to advance in neighboring areas.
Government spokesman Legesse Tulu, however, said late Sunday that “there is currently heavy fighting on the Dessie and Kombolcha fronts”.
Most of northern Ethiopia is off limits to journalists, making independent verification of information from both sides virtually impossible.
According to Getachew, the rebel spokesman, the FLPT, which dominated national politics for three decades until 2018, has “no other motivation than to break the bloody siege” of Tigray, in the throes of a serious humanitarian crisis. But the fighting in Kombolcha, located south of Dessie, fueled speculation that the FLPT was closing in on the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
In Kombolcha, frightened residents told AFP that they had spent the day holed up in their homes as an exchange of fire pitted FLPT fighters against Ethiopian soldiers and local militias.
New fights in Dessie
In a message posted on Facebook, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed urged Ethiopians to use “any weapon […] to block the destructive FLPT, topple it and bury it ”. “Dying for Ethiopia is a duty [pour] all of us, ”he said, echoing the appeal made to residents by the Amhara regional government to mobilize and defend their lands.
The Amhara administration – where Kombolcha and Dessie are located – issued a decree on Sunday ordering all institutions to suspend regular services and devote their budgets and energy to “the survival campaign.”
The town of Dessie was also the scene of new fighting and artillery fire on Sunday. Ethiopian troops, who several witnesses said had retreated the night before, returned to town and ordered residents to stay home. Desta, a resident of Dessie, said he saw soldiers fighting in the streets. “They shoot, but I had to close my window so as not to be spotted and targeted,” he said.
A statement from the Ethiopian army said on Sunday that “the armed forces on the front lines will continue to clean up the group of terrorists.” Residents had previously reported significant military build-up in Dessie, which is about 400 kilometers north of Addis Ababa, as civilians fled conflict-affected towns.
The Ethiopian air force also carried out an airstrike on the regional capital of Tigray on Sunday, the latest in a series of almost daily bombings over the past two weeks. The strike that fell near Mekele targeted a “military training center”. [qui] was used to recruit and train “FLPT fighters, the Ethiopian government said on Twitter.