Tigray: Ethiopian Prime Minister Says Eritrea to Withdraw Border Troops

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“The Eritrean government has agreed to withdraw its forces from the Ethiopian border. The Ethiopian National Defense Force will take over the border areas with immediate effect,” Abiy said in a statement. statement on Twitter after meeting with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in the Eritrean capital Asmara.

Ethiopia’s National Defense Force will immediately take over border guards, Abiy said.

Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed since November, when Abiy launched a major military operation against the ruling Tigray party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which sent national troops and fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region.

CNN previously reported that soldiers in neighboring Eritrea had crossed the Tigray and committed extrajudicial crimes, massacres, sexual violence and other human rights violations.

Abiy claimed on Friday that the TPLF had provoked Eritrean military involvement by firing missiles into its capital, Asmara, and therefore urged the Eritrean government to “maintain its national security”.

CNN could not independently verify the claim. The TPLF denied the start of the conflict and accused Ethiopia and its Eritrean allies of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Separate investigations by CNN and Amnesty International in February revealed evidence of massacres by Eritrean forces in the village of Dengelat and the town of Axum.
And last week, CNN and Channel 4 News in the UK published both investigations into the rape used by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops as a weapon of war against women in Tigray.
A view of the bus station in Wukro, Tigray, on March 1, 2021.
On Tuesday, just days after the reports were released, Abiy said his government would hold accountable any soldier found responsible for rape or robbery in Tigray – acknowledging that Eritrean troops were fighting with Ethiopian forces after months of denials.

“Reports indicate that atrocities have been committed in the Tigray region,” Abiy wrote in a post on his Twitter account. “Regardless of the propaganda of TPLF exaggeration, any soldier responsible for raping our women and robbing communities in the region will be held accountable because their mission is to protect.”

Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for resolving a long-running conflict with neighboring Eritrea, ending two decades of hostilities. Critics say Abiy’s much-lauded peace deal with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has set the stage for the two sides to wage war on the TPLF – their mutual enemy.

On Monday, the Eritrean embassy of the United Kingdom and Ireland responded to repeated requests for comments from CNN by denying allegations of wrongdoing by Eritrean soldiers and denying that Eritrean troops were in Ethiopia.

Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase, Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis and Alex Platt contributed to this report

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