Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in an address to parliament expressed that his federal government has chosen not out of military necessity, to foster a period of silence to reflect on what is to come as far as the nations’ northern region Tigray the scene of civil war for eight months.
Ahmed’s remarks came one week after the Ethiopian government declared a unilateral ceasefire in the Tigray conflict and executed a claimed strategic withdrawal of federal forces to focus on other threats following the seizure of Mekele and most of the rest of the northern region by the Tigray Defence Forces rebel group. The armed group viewed its reoccupation as a victory.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and many hundreds of thousands face hunger in Tigray, an important economic and industrial region in the Horn of Africa nation.
According to the United Nations, over 400,000 people have already crossed the threshold into famine” in Tigray and 1.8 million people are on the brink.
