Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said government forces had concluded their campaign against Tigray People's Liberation Front( TPLF) and have obtained "full control" over Tigray's capital Mekelle.
“Our focus now will be on rebuilding the region and providing humanitarian assistance while Federal Police apprehend the TPLF clique,” Prime Minister Ahmed said.
TPLF's leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, told Reuters, via text message, that his forces have been ordered to continue fighting the Ethiopian army.
"Their brutality can only add (to) our resolve to fight these invaders to the last...This is about defending our right to self-determination,” Gebremichael said.
Ethiopia's army chief said 7,000 Ethiopian POWs have been freed.
"Our forces still control much of rural Tigray, and our governing structure remains intact in these areas,” Fesseha Tessema, a TPLF official, said. “There’s no military solution, only a negotiated political one.”
The fall of Mekelle comes after TPLF leaders were given a 72-hour ultimatum, by Prime Minister Ahmed, to surrender by Wednesday-- which TPLF officials refused to do.
It's not clear if any civilians were killed in the government's final offensive. But what we do know is that more than a hundred civilians have died in the four weeks of fighting that erupted on Nov. 4.
The U.N estimates that over a million people were forced to leave their homes during this period of instability and 43,000 have fled to neighbouring Sudan for refuge. There are also reports of children separated from their parents, who haven't been reunited yet, because of Ethiopia's shut down of telecommunication services in Tigray and the mass exodus civilians went through.
By: Niza Nondo
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