Farming community ‘decimated’ by Tigray rebels in Ethiopia: Government

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - Ethiopia’s government said Friday that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) “decimated” a farming community as the group’s forces continued to encroach farther south into the Amhara regional state.

“The terrorist group has decimated the small rural farming community of Agamsa in Qobo,” Prime Minister’s Office spokeswoman Billene Seyoum said at a news conference. “The terrorist group has continued terrorizing civilian communities in the Amhara region; looting properties, destroying hospitals, health centers and other infrastructure on its destructive path.”

Heavy battles are being fought on numerous fronts in Amhara state after TPLF fighters made forceful incursions into neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, following a June 29 unilateral cease-fire declared by the government and the ensuing withdrawal of government troops from the northernmost region of Tigray.

TPLF ruled Ethiopia for 27 years at the head of a four-party coalition until 2018 -- when it was toppled through many years of struggle characterized mostly by popular protests and widespread civil disobedience.

On Nov. 3, TPLF forces raided federal army bases stationed in Tigray, including in the capital Mekele, killing soldiers and looting sizable military hardware.

The following day the Ethiopian government launched a sweeping law enforcement operation to quell the insurgency.

More than 2 million people were internally displaced and tens of thousands fled to neighboring Sudan.

“The terrorist TPLF group is attacking farming communities, threatening them with death if they don’t indicate to them access routes; assassinating those that forcibly show them routes after they reached their destinations; abducting male and female youth,” said Billene.

“In Debre Tabor, in the terrorist group’s failed attempts to enter the town, they undertook indiscriminate shelling on hospitals and civilian homes, killing an entire family in their indiscriminate shelling,” she said.

Billene also said: “All international partners need to be wary and vigilant of the vicious alliances it (TPLF) is making, including with other global terror cells in the Horn (of Africa) region.”