Al Jazeera News :
An escalating conflict in Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region has killed hundreds of people, a report citing sources on the government side has said, even as the prime minister sought to reassure the world his nation was not sliding into civil war.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, insisted on Monday Ethiopa was not descending into “chaos” despite an ongoing military operation in Tigray.
The flare-up in the northern region bordering Eritrea and Sudan has raised fears of civil war in Africa’s second-most populous nation where ethnic conflict has killed hundreds since Abiy took office in 2018..
“Ethiopia is grateful for friends expressing their concern. Our rule of law operation is aimed at guaranteeing peace and stability once and for all by bringing perpetrators of instability to justice,” he tweeted on Monday. “Concerns that Ethiopia will descend into chaos are unfounded and a result of not understanding our context deeply.”
But a military official in the neighbouring Amhara region, on the side of the federal troops, told Reuters news agency that clashes with Tigrayan forces in Kirakir had killed nearly 500 on the Tigrayan side.
Three security sources in Amhara working with federal troops said the Ethiopian army had also lost hundreds in the original battle in Dansha.
Reuters said it had been unable to verify numbers, though a diplomat also said hundreds were believed to have died. A telephone and internet communications blackout in Tigray has made it difficult to verify the situation on the ground.
Leaders of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region said on Monday the federal government led by Abiy had launched more than 10 air raids against them in recent days.
“These fascists have demonstrated they will show no mercy in destroying Tigrayans by launching more than 10 air strike attempts in Tigrayan cities,” the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which governs the northern region, said on Facebook without mentioning any casualties.
“The people and government of Tigray are standing together,” it added.
