NAIROBI-
Eritrea is mobilizing the armed forces due to a resurgence of conflict in northern Ethiopia, the Canadian government said on Saturday, raising fears that the fighting could intensify in a war that has already displaced millions and caused a humanitarian disaster in northern Ethiopia.
“Local authorities issued a general call for the mobilization of the armed forces in response to the conflict in northern #Ethiopia,” said a Canadian travel advice tweet.
The Canadian government urged its citizens in Eritrea to limit their movements and monitor local media. It was not clear from the statement whether Canada believed that Eritrea was mobilizing forces for offensive or defensive purposes.
canadians in #Eritrea ⚠️
Local authorities have made a general call for the mobilization of the armed forces in response to the conflict in the north #Ethiopia.Limit your movements and control the local media.
More information: https://t.co/pPD2unJl51 pic.twitter.com/Rm1OWCZ9TO
— Travel.gc.ca (@TravelGoC) September 16, 2022
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel and Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Guards at embassies, UN compounds and residences had expressed fear that they would be removed from their posts due to widespread conscription,” a diplomat from the Horn of Africa told Reuters.
An Eritrean exile told Reuters that two relatives inside Eritrea had said the government was sending citizens under the age of 60 to fight and that authorities had warned that deserters would have their homes confiscated.
Reuters was unable to independently verify his account.
Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, said in a tweet on Saturday that Eritrea was calling up “sixty-year-old reservists” to fight.
Eritrea sent troops to Tigray to back up the Ethiopian army after clashes between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF broke out in November 2020.
Both Eritrean and Ethiopian officials denied reports of an Eritrean presence in Tigray until March 2021, despite widespread accounts of gang rapes and mass killings of civilians by Eritrean troops. Eritrea denied the accusations by residents and human rights groups.
Conflict flared up again around Tigray last month after a roughly five-month ceasefire collapsed. Both sides blamed each other for the renewed violence.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war between 1998 and 2000. At the time, the Ethiopian government was dominated by the TPLF. Eritrea and the TPLF remain archenemies.
In 2018, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and signed a peace agreement with Eritrea, an act that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. But relations between Abiy and the TPLF quickly soured.
The Abiy government accuses the TPLF of trying to reassert Tigrayan rule over Ethiopia, while the TPLF accuses Abiy of overly centralizing power and oppressing Tigrayans.
Each side rejects the other’s narrative.
(Reporting from Nairobi Newsroom; editing by Clelia Oziel)