Ethiopian drones struck Eritrean forces who had crossed into northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a conflict monitor and witnesses said Thursday, raising fears that Ethiopia’s renewed internal war could become a conflict between the two neighbors, AFP and the Associated Press reported.
The conflict monitor ACLED said Eritrean troops crossed the border at Zelambesa on Wednesday and came under drone attack at Guada as they traveled toward Idaga Hamus, attributing the strikes to Ethiopia’s military. It also said “Eritrean troops and ammunition” in the Adigrat area were hit by “multiple drone strikes” overnight. “There were many, many drone strikes yesterday. Some Eritrean lorries have been destroyed. They are no longer in the streets,” one witness in Adigrat told AFP; another said Eritrean troops appeared to be retreating north. The AP said it could not independently verify the accounts.
Neither government responded to AFP’s questions about the fighting. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not explicitly confirm or deny that troops had crossed, but accused Ethiopia of jeopardizing regional peace through its pursuit of “sovereign access to the sea,” the AP reported. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed reiterated Monday that his landlocked country must have access to the Red Sea.
Fighting resumed in recent weeks between Ethiopian federal forces and an opposition alliance that includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, undermining the 2022 peace deal. Government-allied fighters entered the regional capital, Mekelle, on Sunday after the TPLF withdrew, and residents of Shire told the AP that TPLF forces had pulled out of that town on Wednesday. Earlier this month Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara, and Eritrea said it was severing diplomatic ties. The two countries fought a border war from 1998 to 2000.
Sources: AFP (via Al Arabiya), Associated Press
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