ADDIS ABABA, (The Southern African Times) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday vowed to finish a military operation in the country’s restive northern Tigray regional state.
In a press statement, Ahmed said the government will complete law enforcement activities in the coming days, now that a 3-day amnesty period has expired.
On Saturday, the Ethiopian PM made a televised statement calling on Tigray region security forces to surrender to federal security forces in a 3-day window period.
“Since the three days amnesty deadline has been completed in the coming days, final law enforcement activities will be undertaken,” said Ahmed.
The PM also commended Tigray region security forces who used the three days amnesty deadline to surrender to federal government security forces.
“The three days deadline for the Tigray region special forces and militia to give their hands to Ethiopia Defense Forces instead of being a tool for the greedy junta has expired,” said Ahmed.
“Those Tigray special forces and militia who used the three-day deadline are much appreciated,” he further said.
Since Nov. 4, the Ethiopian government had been undertaking military operations against the TPLF, the ruling party in Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region, and now in an official war against the federal government that followed TPLF’s reported attack against the Northern command of the Ethiopian Defense Force, a division that has been stationed in the region for over two decades.
The Ethiopian government has been blaming the TPLF, which was one of the four coalition fronts of Ethiopia’s former ruling party the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), for masterminding various treasonous acts across different parts of the country with an overarching goal of destabilizing the East African country.
Three of the former four EPRDF coalition members had last year joined other regional parties in establishing the Prosperity Party, as the TPLF refused to join.
The mounting differences between the federal government and TPLF exacerbated in September this year when the Tigray regional government decided to go with its planned regional elections, which the Ethiopian parliament had previously postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
