KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) – The Prime Minister of Ethiopia said on Friday that Eritrea had agreed to withdraw its forces from the Tigray region, where witnesses described them as robbing, killing and raping civilians.
The statement by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office comes after intense pressure from the United States and others to address the deadly crisis in Tigray.
Abiy’s statement after a visit to Eritrea said that Ethiopian forces would take over the border areas “immediately”.
Abiy only last week acknowledged the presence of Eritrean soldiers, longtime enemies of Tigray leaders who once dominated the Ethiopian government.
The new statement does not say how many Eritrean soldiers were in Ethiopia, although witnesses estimated it at thousands.
Eritrea said in a statement that Abiy and its president, Isaias Afwerki, had discussed in depth “the common strategic partnership and predicted the common trajectory, the vicious military attacks launched in the last five months and the related disinformation campaigns”, but did not specifically mentioned Tigray. Eritrea’s statement added that “important lessons have been learned from the temporary obstacles posed by this reality which will further strengthen the joint ventures of the two sides in the coming period.”
In a tweet, the Eritrean ambassador to Japan said that “starting today, #Eritrea / n Defense Forces units will hand over all posts inside #Ethiopia’s borders that have been liberated by the Ethiopian Defense Forces.”
Abiy shocked the region in 2018, making peace with Eritrea after a long border war in the Tigray region, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But since the current Tigray conflict began in November, Abiy has been accused of teaming up with Eritrea to pursue Tigray leaders, now fugitives.
Abiy’s statement accuses former Tigray leaders of triggering the conflict by attacking Ethiopian forces, then drawing Eritrea into battle, launching missiles into the Eritrean capital. But witnesses claimed the involvement of Eritrean soldiers from the beginning of the fighting.
A few weeks ago, the US was asking Eritrean soldiers to leave Tigray immediately, and the pressure has increased in recent days, the Biden administration sent Senator Chris Coons to Ethiopia almost a week ago for hours of talks with Abiy.
No one knows how many thousands of people, especially civilians, were killed in the Tigray battle. The region of about 6 million people has been largely out of the world, and despite progress in providing aid, humanitarian workers have warned that incoming food and other supplies are far from sufficient due to fears of hunger.
And only in recent days has the United Nations Office for Human Rights said that access to the Tigray region with limited capacity to support investigations into alleged atrocities, including the mass rape of Eritrean soldiers and others, has been allowed.
The UN refugee agency told reporters in Geneva that it had finally reached two refugee camps that had housed about 20,000 people in nearby Eritrea and found them “completely destroyed.” He said only 9,000 refugees had been counted.
An Abiy spokeswoman did not immediately respond to questions about Friday’s statement, including why the Eritreans did not withdraw after previous requests.