Ethiopia's military gains in Tigray are just the start, analyst says
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The Tigray People's Liberation Front in northern Ethiopia says it has withdrawn from the city of Mekelle. The region's capital has now been taken over by Ethiopian government forces after they captured the city's main airport late on Saturday. It was one of three airfields in the region that Tigrayan forces seized in late September. Footage has been released of the army patrolling the streets of Mekelle, marking a major setback for Tigrayan forces in their own stronghold. The renewed fighting is the most serious escalation since the civil war ended four years ago and has raised fears that Ethiopia could be heading towards another civil war, with concerns that the conflict could also draw in other countries in the region. The fighting followed the collapse of a 2022 peace deal that ended the devastating war between the federal government and Tigrayan forces. The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly 30 years until Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018, shifting the balance of power. War broke out in 2020, killing hundreds of thousands of people between 2020 and 2022, before a peace deal was signed in November 2022. Fighting largely stopped, but disputes over the TPLF's status and disarmament remained, and in July the TPLF declared the deal effectively dead.
Adem Kassie Abebe, a senior adviser on constitutional governance and rule of law, told Al Jazeera that Ethiopia must find a way to regain its status as a stable nation and reintegrate Tigray and its forces into the rest of the country. He said the country has failed to develop a consensus-based political agreement, leading to winner-takes-all politics and larger conflict. He warned that military victories should not be considered acceptance or legitimacy, and that the government must rebuild trust, protect civilians and begin the reintegration and reconstruction of the region.
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