Addis Ababa – US special envoy Mike Hammer was in Addis Ababa on Friday as part of a push to try to end the nearly two-year war between Ethiopian government forces and Tigrayan rebels.
Hammer has been on a regional tour as international efforts intensify to try to bring peace to northern Ethiopia after fighting resumed in late August, rupturing a five-month truce.
Western powers including the US had on Wednesday urged Ethiopia’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to start African Union-led peace talks, and called on neighboring Eritrea to withdraw its troops from the battlefield.
Hammer held talks in Addis with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen, who “reaffirmed the government’s commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the northern part of the country,” Ethiopia’s foreign ministry tweeted.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated the United States’ position in a statement Friday evening, saying the country is “deeply concerned” over the violence in northern Ethiopia, especially the “indiscriminate targeting of civilians”.
“We reiterate that the government of Ethiopia and Tigray regional authorities should immediately cease all hostilities and participate seriously in the forthcoming African Union-led peace talks,” Blinken said.
Both Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigrayan authorities have accepted an AU invitation to sit down at the negotiating table.
But talks scheduled to start last weekend in South Africa failed to take place, with diplomats suggesting logistical issues were partly to blame.
“It is urgent that talks happen to stop the fighting, alleviate the suffering, and find a way forward for resolving outstanding issues through dialogue,” Hammer told journalists Saturday during a stop in Nairobi.
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“Eritrea’s re-entry into Ethiopia has made matters significantly worse,” he added.
The conflict first erupted in November 2020 when Abiy – a Nobel Peace Prize winner – sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF, saying the move was in response to attacks by the group on federal army camps.
The fighting followed months of tensions between Abiy and the TPLF which had dominated the Ethiopian government for almost three decades before he took office in 2018.
Unknown numbers of civilians have been killed and the war has unleashed a humanitarian disaster in Tigray and other parts of northern Ethiopia, with more than two million people uprooted from their homes and hundreds of thousands close to famine, according to the United Nations.
Access to the war-torn areas is restricted and there is a communications blackout in Tigray, which is also suffering from dire shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@GPEthiopia
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