ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s federal military operations in the north have “clear, limited and achievable objectives”, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Friday, after the head of the United Nations said he was deeply alarmed by fighting in the country’s Tigray region.
Abiy’s government is mobilising troops from around the country and sending them to Tigray, after two days of clashes between government forces and a powerful ethnic faction that led the country’s ruling coalition for decades.
The military campaign in the north has “clear, limited and achievable objectives”, Abiy wrote on Twitter.
The operations sought “to restore the rule of law and the constitutional order, and to safeguard the rights of Ethiopians to lead a peaceful life wherever they are in the country.”
Ethiopia’s war preparations have dashed international hopes of averting a conflict between Abiy’s government and the powerful Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said he was deeply alarmed by the fighting.
“The stability of Ethiopia is important for the entire Horn of Africa region. I call for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and a peaceful resolution to the dispute,” Guterres said in a message on Twitter seen on Friday.
Sporadic sounds of shelling could be heard from Abdurafi town, near the Tigray-Amhara border, at 3 a.m local time (0000 GMT) on Friday, a humanitarian worker in the area told Reuters.
The TPLF was for decades the dominant political force in the country’s multi-ethnic ruling coalition, until Abiy, a member of the Oromo ethnic group, took office two years ago.
