US ‘directly’ urges Eritrea to withdraw troops from Tigray

Cara Anna | The Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya — The United States said it has directly “urged senior levels of the Eritrean government” to immediately withdraw its troops from neighboring Ethiopia, where witnesses say Ethiopian troops are looting and hunting civilians in the war-torn Tigray region.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that Washington has expressed “serious” concerns about credible reports of abuse. Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, has not yet disclosed how officials there have responded.

Eritrea rarely speaks publicly about the Tigray conflict as Ethiopian soldiers battle forces loyal to the now-fugitive Tigray regional leaders who dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades. Tigray leaders have been marginalized since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, with each side considering the other illegitimate.

Ethiopia has repeatedly denied the presence of Eritrean soldiers, which some witnesses have estimated at thousands. Now there are growing concerns that Eritrean troops are refusing to leave. Eritrea remains an enemy of the fugitive Tigray leader after a two-decade border war ended under Abiy.

Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on Thursday published a statement from the country’s embassy in the United States in response to an open letter this week from the former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia expressing concerns about the Tigray conflict and Eritrea’s involvement.

“The ambassadors’ suggestion of a possible territorial war between Eritrea and Ethiopia can only be hypocritical and their intentions malicious,” Eritrea said in a statement. Eritrea is “deeply frustrated by their provocations and malicious attacks.”

The Tigray region remains largely isolated from the outside world and Ethiopia has banned almost all journalists from entering, making it difficult to verify the claims of the warring parties.

Meanwhile, humanitarian workers are unable to reach Tigray’s approximately 6 million residents due to shortages of food and other supplies and growing concerns about hunger.

The situation is “deteriorating every day, every minute,” the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Ato Abela Tola, told reporters on Thursday as the Red Cross appealed for more funding. “There is no region that is not affected by this conflict … the conflict is everywhere.”

Katia Sorin, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Ethiopia, said they still had no access to rural areas of Tigray, which is largely agricultural. The ICRC is one of the few international organizations that has continued to operate in Tigray since the outbreak of fighting.

“We are helping, but it’s just a drop in the ocean,” Sorin said.

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