Ethiopian government pressures Chifra government: Government issues | Stories

Corpses appear “everywhere in the streets” of the town of Afar as Al Jazeera finds an opportunity to move forward in the face of growing tensions.

An Ethiopian journalist says government forces are taking control of the town of Chifra in Afar province, their first capture since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier this week he was going ahead to lead the federal army against militants in the north. Tigray region.

Thousands of people have died and millions have fled their homes since the Ethiopian war with the Allied forces, with the Tigrayan Army, began in November 2020. The conflict has created a major humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of people starving.

Tigrayan troops occupied Chifra, on the northern border of Afar and Amhara, after fighting broke out last month.

“Ethiopian Security Forces and Afar Special Forces have taken control of Chifra,” the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation reported on its Twitter account on Sunday, without elaborating.

There was no immediate comment from Tigrayan soldiers.

‘Dead corpses everywhere’

Many areas in northern Ethiopia are being shut down and access to the media is severely restricted, making military statements difficult to verify. Al Jazeera, however, was able to get a chance to go to Chifra, the first international news agency to do so.

Commenting on the town’s “heart”, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Mohammed Taha Tewekel said Tigrayan forces had been “evicted” by pro-government activists from the Afar region, and that “gunfire was heard from all.” for hours.

“They [Chifra] has been the epicenter of the war in the last 40 days, “Tewekel said in a statement, with a gunshot wound to the ground.

“The pictures we saw are very bad. Corpses are everywhere in the streets. This is a real proof of the danger of fighting. There are clear signs of a lack of humanity in the conflict. The town’s commercial shops were completely destroyed, though mosques were not abandoned. All the people have fled to save their lives and the town has become a battlefield for Afari fighters, “he added.

Afari fighters have “captured the city” and are now heading for the towns of Bati and Kombolcha, the journalist said.

Chifra is located west of Mille, which Tigrayan forces have been trying to capture for weeks, because it is located on the road between Ethiopia and Djibouti, the largest Horn of Africa port.

The state-run Fana Broadcasting Corporation said on Friday that Abiy was in the forefront of the Tigrayan-led army in Afar.

“The morals of the military are very interesting,” he said in a statement released Friday, promising to take Chifra “today”.

After months of hardship, Abiy in November 2020 sent troops to Tigray to overthrow the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF ruled the federal government for almost three decades until Abiy took office in 2018.

The Prime Minister promised a speedy victory and government forces seized the Tigray capital, Mekelle, in late November. By June, Tigrayan troops had recaptured the entire region and pushed into neighboring Amhara and Afar.

Tigrayan troops recently also reported significant regional gains, saying this week they seized a town 220km (135 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa.

The international awareness of conflict is growing exponentially, with a number of foreign nations urging their citizens to leave while the United Nations and United States efforts have so far failed.