Nine anti-government factions in Ethiopia have said they had formed an alliance amid growing fears that they will attempt to overthrow the government of Abiy Ahmed by marching on the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.
The alliance, the United Front of Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces, includes Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and brings together members of previously rival ethnic groups, including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
“There is no limit for us,” Berhane Gebrechristos, a former foreign minister and Tigray official, told reporters at an event announcing the alliance in Washington. “Definitely we will have a change in Ethiopia before Ethiopia implodes.”
Late on Friday, the UN security council called for a ceasefire, expressing “deep concern” over the escalation of fighting.
“Today the security council breaks six months of silence and speaks again with one united voice on the deeply concerning situation in Ethiopia,” Ireland’s UN ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason said in a statement.
“For the first time, the council clearly calls for a cessation of hostilities. We believe this should happen immediately, and that all civilians must be protected,” she said.
The US, meanwhile, advised its citizens to “leave the country as soon as possible” on Friday, and warned that the “security environment is very fluid”. People had multiple options to leave via commercial flights, the state department added.
Ethiopia’s government on Friday called the alliance “a publicity stunt, asserting that some of the groups involved “are not really organizations that have any traction.” It also asserted that life in the capital had a “sense of normalcy” and rejected any notion of a siege.
But there is a growing sense of anxiety in the capital, with people panic buying goods and some fearful that the TPLF, which was the leading force in Ethiopia until 2018, would return to power in the country. Tigrayans living in the capital are also being subject to detention.
The United Front said it was being formed “to reverse the harmful effects of the Abiy Ahmed rule on the peoples of Ethiopia and beyond”, the groups said. It is also being formed “in recognition of the great need to collaborate and join forces towards a safe transition in the country”.
Abiy’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, when asked about the new anti-government alliance, referred to a comment she posted on Twitter in which she defended Abiy’s rule since he took office in 2018 after a wave of protests against the then TPLF-led government. His party was re-elected in June.
“The opening up of the political space three years ago provided ample opportunity for contenders to settle their differences at the ballot box in June 2021,” Seyoum said in the post.
The emergence of the United Front is the latest development in a year-long war, in which the Ethiopian government and its allies have been on the defensive since June. Last weekend the TPLF and the OLA said they had seized towns 200 miles north of Addis.
It prompted Abiy to declare a state of emergency on Tuesday, a couple of days after he had called for citizens to take up arms to defend themselves, in a Facebook posting that was subsequently removed by the social media giant for “inciting and supporting violence”.
The other seven groups in the alliance are less well known, and their overall military capability is uncertain as the bloody civil war continues to rage.
Tens of thousands have died in the conflict, which has seen accusations of massacres, sexual violence and human rights abuses on both sides – although a media and internet ban in Tigray has meant information about the conflict has been scant.
Humanitarian agencies are also largely unable to operate in the region, with the UN complaining that only a small proportion of aid is able to get through. Tigrayan leaders accuse Ethiopia of trying to starve its population, claims denied by the government in Addis.
However, this week, a joint UN-Ethiopian report on the conflict provided first-hand accounts of a string of human rights violations, some of which “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”, according to Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights.
The commissioner said “the majority of the violations” between November 2020 and June 2021 appeared to have been committed by Ethiopian forces and their Eritrean allies. But since the Tigrayan counter-offensive had started, Bachelet added that there were “an increasing number of allegations of human rights abuses by Tigray forces”.
African and western nations have called for an immediate ceasefire. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a tweet late on Thursday: “The conflict in Ethiopia must come to an end. Peace negotiations should begin immediately without preconditions in pursuit of a ceasefire.”
US senators on Thursday introduced a new sanctions bill on parties to the conflict in Ethiopia. “This is a regional crisis that requires a coordinated and intensive international response,” said Senator Jim Risch, a Republican from Idaho.
The announcement of the alliance comes during a two-day visit to Addis Ababa by the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman.
On Thursday, he met the African Union Commission chairperson, Moussa Faki, as well as the Ethiopian defence minister, finance minister and deputy prime minister, according to the state department. It was not clear whether the US envoy would meet Abiy.
Agencies contributed to this report.
