Oct 7 (Reuters) – Eritrean soldiers drove through the northern Ethiopian town of Adigrat on Wednesday, witnesses and experts said, days after the Horn of Africa neighbours severed diplomatic ties, raising fears of outright conflict.
The sightings of Eritrean troops would be the first confirmation of their presence on Ethiopian soil during the conflict in the country’s north between the federal government and a rebel alliance that broke out last month.
Eritrea’s information minister Yemane Gebremeskel denied Eritrean forces were there, calling the witness accounts part of an Ethiopian plan to justify a war of aggression against its smaller neighbour.
Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of backing the rebel alliance battling federal government troops since September 23 in the northern regions of Tigray, Amhara and Afar. Afar’s chief administrator said last week that Eritrean troops were fighting in his region, but Reuters could not confirm that.
Asmara has denied the allegations, which led to the severing of diplomatic ties last week.
Spokespeople for Ethiopia’s government and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
WITNESSES SAW ERITREAN TROOPS DRIVING THROUGH TOWN
Two residents of Adigrat, a town in Tigray about 25 km (15 miles) south of the Eritrean border that has not experienced clashes during the current conflict, said they had seen two trucks with dozens of Eritrean soldiers driving through the town on Wednesday morning.
They said they could identify the soldiers as Eritrean by their off-white camouflage uniforms. Another Adigrat resident who was not in town at the time said family members had told him they had also seen Eritrean troops.
The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns related to the ongoing conflict.
Jalale Getachew Birru, East Africa regional expert for the non-profit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, said Eritrean forces had crossed the border at Zelambesa on Wednesday and moved south towards Adigrat.
The Ethiopian military had carried out drone strikes on vehicles carrying the Eritrean soldiers at Guada, Birru said, without providing further details.
The Eritrean information minister Yemane said the allegations about the presence of Eritrean fighters were intended to provide Ethiopia with a pretext to attack Eritrea. He did not immediately reply to a request for comment about ACLED’s assertion that Eritrean forces had been targeted by Ethiopian government drones.
For over three years, Abiy and other Ethiopian officials have repeatedly said that sea access is vital for their landlocked country’s security and economy. Asmara views those comments as an implicit threat against it, while Addis Ababa has said it aims to gain sea access peacefully.
Ethiopia “has tried to re-package this war agenda in terms of self-defence by fabricating various allegations against Eritrea,” Yemane said. “So we connect the dots.”
NORTHERN ETHIOPIA CONFLICT FUELS FEARS OF WIDER WAR
Eritrean soldiers fought in support of Ethiopia’s federal government during a 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.
Some of them remained in northern parts of Tigray close to the border well after the war ended, according to Ethiopia’s government, UN experts and human rights organisations. Eritrea denied this.
The fighting that broke out last month has raised fear that unrest could spread beyond Ethiopia’s borders in an increasingly fragile region where other powers are competing for influence.
Tigray has Ethiopia’s longtime foe Eritrea to its north, and Sudan — caught up in a more than three-year-old civil war — to its west.
Ethiopia’s government has also accused Egypt and Sudan of supporting the opposition alliance. Both have denied this.
On Saturday, the US State Department urged Asmara and Addis Ababa to exercise restraint, warning that a conflict would jeopardise US collaboration with both countries.
Eritrea, a former province of Ethiopia, won its statehood in 1993 after a 30-year independence struggle. The two countries fought a border war from 1998-2000 that killed tens of thousands.
They normalised diplomatic relations in 2018, winning Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize, but relations soured once again during the 2020-2022 Tigray war.
(Reporting by Giulia Paravicini and Aaron Ross, Editing by Peter Graff)
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