Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has announced the end of military operations in the northern Tigray region after the army said it was in “full control” of the regional capital, Mekelle.
Since November 4, the Ethiopian government has been trying to quell a rebellion by a powerful ethnic faction, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in a war that has shaken the Horn of Africa. Thousands of people are believed to have died and nearly one million forced from their homes, including some 43,000 refugees who fled to neighbouring Sudan.
In a statement on Twitter on Saturday, Abiy said he was “pleased” to share that the military operations in the Tigray region had been “completed and ceased”.
“We now have ahead of us the critical task of rebuilding what has been destroyed; repairing what is damaged; returning those who have fled, with utmost priority of returning normalcy to the people of the Tigray region” he said, adding that federal police would continue searching for and detaining TPLF “criminals” and would bring them to court.
