Ethiopia scorns guerrilla war fears, U.N. team shot at in Tigray

[December 07, 2020]  ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI (Reuters) -Ethiopia's government denied on Monday that northern forces whom its troops have fought for a month would be able to mount a guerrilla insurgency, while diplomats said a United Nations team was shot at while trying to visit a refugee camp.

Federal troops have seized the regional capital Mekelle from the former local ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and declared an end to their month-long offensive.

But TPLF leaders say they are fighting back on various fronts around Mekelle. Ethiopia experts fear a drawn-out insurgency with a destabilising impact around east Africa.

"The criminal clique pushed a patently false narrative that its fighters and supporters are battle-hardened and well-armed, posing the risk of protracted insurgency in the rugged mountains of Tigray," Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement.

"It also claimed that it has managed to undertake strategic retreat with all its capability and regional government apparatus intact. The reality is the criminal clique is thoroughly defeated and in disarray, with insignificant capability to mount a protracted insurgency."

There was no immediate TPLF response.

With communications largely down and access for humanitarian workers and media restricted, Reuters has not been able to verify claims from all sides on the state of fighting.

A United Nations security team seeking to access Shimelba refugee camp, one of four for Eritrean refugees in Tigray, was blocked and fired at on Sunday, two diplomatic sources said.

The sources declined to give more details, saying the full circumstances were unclear. There was no immediate comment from the government, TPLF or United Nations.

AID NEEDED FAST

The conflict, which has its roots in Abiy's pushback against Tigrayans' past dominance of federal government and military posts, is thought to have killed thousands of people.

It has also sent nearly 50,000 refugees fleeing to Sudan, seen TPLF rockets fired into Eritrea, stirred ethnic divisions, and led to the disarming of Tigrayans in Ethiopia's peacekeeping contingency combating al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks during a media conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, October 29, 2018. Michel Euler/Pool via REUTERS

The United Nations and aid agencies are pressing for safe access to Tigray, which is home to more than 5 million people and where 600,000 relied on food aid even before the war.

However, two senior aid officials told Reuters over the weekend that looting and lawlessness meant the region was still too dangerous to dispatch convoys. [nL8N2IM0BE]

The government says that with peace restored, its priorities are the welfare of Tigrayans and return of refugees. But some residents, diplomats and the TPLF say clashes persist, with protests and looting also reported in Mekelle on Friday.

The TPLF dominated government for nearly three decades, until Abiy took office in 2018 and began democratic reforms.

The party accuses him of seeking to centralise power at the expense of Ethiopia's 10 regions and says Tigrayan officials were unfairly targeted in a crackdown on corruption and rights abuses. The government denies that and accuses TPLF leaders of treason for attacking federal forces in early November.
 

(Reporting by Addis Ababa Newsroom; Additional reporting by Maggie Fick and Nairobi Newsroom;Writing by Andrew Cawthorne;Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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