Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has acknowledged that Eritrean troops committing atrocities against civilians in Ethiopia’s Tigray region during the two-year war which ended in 2022.
As allies Eritrean forces fought alongside Ethiopian federal troops against local Tigrayan fighters for control of the state of Tigray, which borders Eritrea.
Relations between the two countries had thawed following Abiy’s ascension to power in Addis Ababa in 2018, almost two decades after the end of a bitter Ethiopia-Eritrea border war.
Addressing the House of People’s Representatives, the lower chamber of the parliament, PM Ahmed said Eritrean troops had massacred people in Aksum city in Tigray region- allegations Eritrea had previously denied.
“Some people argue, think, and analyze that the problem between the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments arose following Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea. This is not the case,” Abiy said, noting that the rift with Asmara began when the Eritrean troops massacred civilians in the historic city of Aksum during the Tigray war.
The prime minister’s latest speech was a far cry from his address to parliament shortly after the end of the two-year war.
In that address PM Ahmed had said the Ethiopian federal government was appreciative of Asmara’s alliance with Addis Ababa to fight the Tigray People’s Liberation Front insurgents.
Relations have soured against in the wake of landlocked Ethiopia’s ambition over possible access to a Red Sea port in Eritrea.
The Prime Minister claimed the situation worsened as the war moved through historic towns in central Tigray. “When we moved through Axum, the tension intensified as [Eritrean forces] entered and conducted mass executions of youth,” he told parliament, adding that in Adwa, Eritrean troops “began dismantling and looting factories,” and in Adigrat, “uprooted what could be moved from the pharmaceutical factory and destroyed the rest,” pushing relations to a breaking point.
MG/as/APA