The Ethiopian government announced Thursday that it will take part in talks organized by the African Union (AU) on October 24 in South Africa to try to end the war in Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia.
Previous talks, convened in early October by the AU in South Africa, had never started, in particular because of organizational problems, according to diplomats.
The AU Commission “informed us that the peace talks are set for October 24 in South Africa. We have reconfirmed our commitment to participate,” wrote Redwan Hussein, national security adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in a tweet.
The AU Commission, headquartered in Addis Ababa, did not officially announce the talks and did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation from AFP.
Asked by AFP about these new talks, the rebel authorities of the northern region of Tigray, which an armed conflict has pitted against the federal government since the beginning of November 2020, simply recalled their previous commitment to participate in peace talks.
“We have already announced that we will take part in a (peace) process under the aegis of the AU,” said one of their spokesmen, Getachew Reda, without reference to the date of October 24.
No details are currently available on the terms of the discussions or on the identity of the mediators.
The AU recently set up a mediation “troika”, led by its special envoy for the Horn of Africa, ex-Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, assisted by ex-Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the former South African Vice-President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
“Deeply staggering” record
After a five-month truce which had given rise to the first hopes of negotiations, fighting has resumed on a large scale since August 24 in northern Ethiopia.
AU, UN, United States, European Union (EU) have sounded the alarm over the past few days in the face of the intensification of fighting in Tigray, surrounded by the Ethiopian federal army and its allies, in particular the army of Eritrea, a country that borders the entire northern border of the rebel region.
On Sunday, the chairman of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, called for “an immediate and unconditional ceasefire”, relayed by the UN, the EU and Washington, which also called for the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia.
The rebels said they were “ready to respect” this ceasefire.
Without responding directly to the AU’s call, the government of Mr. Abiy, Nobel Peace Prize 2019, justified the continuation of its military operations by saying that it was “forced to take defensive measures”, while reaffirming its wish “for a peaceful resolution of the conflict through talks”.
In his tweet Thursday, Mr. Redwan said, without further details, that the government “is appalled to see some trying to corner the peace talks and propagate false allegations against the defensive measures”.
Looted warehouse
The Ethiopian government has seized three towns in Tigray in recent days, including the key town of Shire, around which fighting had sparked international concern.
After several days of aerial and artillery bombardment, Ethiopian and Eritrean troops entered the town on Monday, which had a population of 100,000 before the conflict and has taken in thousands of Tigray residents displaced by the war.
On Tuesday, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, denounced the “deeply staggering” toll among civilians of air strikes and artillery fire in Tigray.
On Wednesday, a humanitarian source who requested anonymity said that after the capture of the city, soldiers broke into a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse containing “non-food items and fuel”, without being able to say what had been stolen immediately.
Asked by AFP, the WFP said “to be checking the facts”.
The humanitarian source also said “hearing of many rapes of women” in Shire since the capture of the city.
In addition to Shire, located about fifty kilometers from the Eritrean border, the Ethiopian federal troops also seized the localities of Alamata and Korem (70,000 and 35,000 inhabitants respectively) in southern Tigray.
Journalists do not have access to northern Ethiopia and telecommunications there operate haphazardly, making independent verification impossible.
The exact toll of this war is unknown. But it caused a humanitarian catastrophe, displacing more than two million people and plunging hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians into near-famine conditions, according to the UN.