Ethiopia Says Shot Down Arms-Loaded Plane Bound for Tigray From Sudan as TPLF Breaks Ceasefire

The Ethiopian conflict has generated a massive humanitarian crisis, with millions being internally displaced or threatened with hunger. The UN has struggled to get food aid to the affected regions, especially Tigray, due to the fighting. However, a five-month ceasefire allowed many shipments to arrive, partly alleviating the problem.

The Ethiopian Air Force announced on Wednesday it had shot down a plane flying toward Tigray state from Sudan. The news came the same day as reports claiming that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls Tigray and is regarded by the Ethiopian government as a terrorist group, had launched a new attack on Ethiopian forces.

”A plane that is believed to be from our historical enemies who have been working to weaken Ethiopia was shot down by the brave Ethiopian Air Force while entering our airspace from the direction of Sudan,” the EAF said.

According to Borkena, Maj. Gen. Tesfaye Ayalew reported that the plane was downed near Humera, a town controlled by the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) that was historically part of Amhara state, but transferred to Tigray during the 27-year period of TPLF rule, from 1991 until 2018. He said the TPLF had been trying to seize the town so as to achieve a direct route for arms from Sudan.

Little other information about the plane has been given, including its size, crew complement, cargo, and if anyone survived the crash.

A senior diplomatic source in the Sudanese defense ministry told Sputnik on Wednesday that Addis’ accusations were “strange, confusing and ill-grounded.” The TPLF also issued a statement denying that such a plane existed.

However, such shipments are not unknown, either. In late November 2020, just weeks after the conflict in Tigray began, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized a large cache of heavy weapons in Kassala state, which borders Tigray.

Executive Secretary of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Ethiopia's Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Workneh Gebeyahu (L) gestures next to Sudan's President of the Transitional Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (C) and Ethiopia President Abiy Ahmed (R) during the 39th IGAD extraordinary summit in Nairobi on July 5, 2022.

© AFP 2023 / TONY KARUMBA

Khartoum and Addis Ababa have also been at loggerheads in recent months after fighting broke out in Al-Fashaqa, a fertile region of eastern Sudan over which the two nations have feuded for more than a century. An agreement allowing Ethiopian farmers to work the land under Sudanese governance fell apart after the TPLF uprising began, and the deaths of seven Sudanese soldiers near the border region in June nearly sparked a war between them.

At the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) summit in Nairobi, Kenya, last month, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his Sudanese counterpart, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, pledged to work toward a “peaceful resolution” of their differences.

Renewed Fighting on Tigray-Amhara Border

News of the shootdown came just hours after renewed fighting broke out in Tigray. According to the TPLF, the ENDF “launched an offensive” against its southern flank on the Tigray-Amhara border, while Abiy’s government said the opposite.

In a separate statement, the TPLF said the attacks on the southeast were an “auxiliary attack” to the main offensive, which would come from the western Gondar region, adding it was ready to repulse such an attack. It claimed Abiy’s government had been preparing the attack for weeks, gathering militia and special forces from across the country.

However, a video that began circulating on social media last week seemed to show the TPLF preparing to launch a new attack.

In the video from Tigray-based Dimtsi Weyane Television, TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael is seen giving a speech in which he warns that able-bodied people who don’t join their fighting forces would have to face consequences.

“Tigray will only be for those who are armed and fighting. Those who are capable of fighting but do not want to fight will not have a place in Tigray. In the future, they will lack something. They will not have equal rights as those who joined the fighting [struggle]. We are working on regulation. Those who do not join the struggle will lack something forever,” he said, according to Borkena.

A fighter loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) mans a guard post in northern Ethiopia

© AP Photo / Ben Curtis

Peace Talks?

The reasons for the renewed violence are not clear. A ceasefire between the ENDF and TPLF was reached in late December 2021, after Tigrayan forces were pushed back into Tigray from their southward drive across Amhara and Afar. However, the TPLF launched a new attack eastward into Tigray at the start of 2022, which was only repulsed in April.

Because the TPLF is considered a terrorist organization, the national dialogue on reconciliation that began after the December ceasefire did not immediately include them. Abiy laid out three terms for peace, which included recognizing his government as legitimate, laying down their arms, and ceasing their attacks on ENDF forces, and said he would not dismiss peace talks. Rumors of such talks have persisted, which his government has denied, but were expected to begin later this month.

Washington’s Lost Policeman in the Horn

The TPLF once ruled all of Ethiopia, having led the resistance movement that brought down the Derg military government in 1991. During its 27-year rule, it emphasized the growth and importance of Tigray over all other Ethiopian states, taking land from Amhara to add to it and moving central industries and military stores there. It also launched a disastrous war with Eritrea, recently independent from Ethiopia, that killed more than 120,000 people.

When Abiy, an Oromo, was selected by the alliance of ethnic-based parties led by the TPLF to become the next prime minister in 2018, he set about reducing the power of the group by reorganizing the different parties into a single Prosperity Party. Abiy also made peace with Eritrea. These moves angered both the TPLF and the United States, which had long used the TPLF as its policeman in the Horn of Africa, and the group began laying plans to overthrow Abiy.

In this Sunday July 15, 2018 file photo, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, second left, and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, center, hold hands as they wave at the crowds in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Once official rivals, the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea have embraced warmly to the roar of a crowd of thousands at a concert celebrating the end of a long state of war. The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Friday Oct. 11, 2019.

© AP Photo / Mulugeta Ayene

A leaked video in November 2021 of a meeting between US Ambassador to Somalia Donald Yamamoto, Berhane Gebre-christos, a longtime TPLF official who served as Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United States, and a slew of Western diplomats, revealed the West’s support for the TPLF. In the video, the diplomats celebrate the group’s advance on Addis Ababa and give Berhane advice on how to form a post-Abiy government.

Subsequent statements by TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda on Tigrayan television in December 2021 revealed that from the beginning, the US had encouraged the TPLF uprising in November 2020 as well as its decision to launch an all-out offensive toward Addis in the summer of 2021.