Ethiopia declares victory as military takes Tigray capital - Fox News

NAIROBI, Kenya – Ethiopia’s military has gained “full control” of the capital of the defiant Tigray region, the army announced Saturday, and the prime minister said the taking of Mekele marked the “completion” of an offensive that started nearly four weeks ago.

The regional government said the city of a half-million people was “heavily bombarded” in the final push to arrest its leaders.

“God bless Ethiopia and its people!” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement.

Now, he said, police will pursue the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, who run the region and dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition before Abiy came to power in 2018 and sidelined them among the sweeping reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

The prime minister has rejected dialogue with TPLF leaders, including during a Friday meeting with three African Union special envoys.

ETHIOPIAN ARMED FORCES LAUNCH ASSAULT ON REBEL REGION, OFFICIALS SAY.

As Abiy spoke of “returning normalcy” to the Tigray region, one of his ministers told The Associated Press in a phone interview “there is no way” the search for the TPLF leaders will take weeks.

The minister in charge of democratization, Zadig Abraha, also said the Ethiopian government doesn’t yet know the number of people killed in the conflict.

Let peace prevail in Ethiopia!!!” former Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn tweeted.

The Tigray region of 6 million people has been cut off from the world as the military pursued what Abiy called a “law enforcement operation” with airstrikes and tanks.

The TPLF turned churches, schools and densely populated neighborhoods in Mekele “into armament stores and launching pads,” senior Ethiopian official Redwan Hussein asserted in a Facebook post.

Ethiopia’s government had warned residents there would be “no mercy” if they didn’t move away from the TPLF leaders in time.

The United Nations said some fled as tanks closed in and Abiy’s 72-hour ultimatum for TPLF leaders to surrender expired.

The minister dismissed the idea that Ethiopia has been left with “any, like, severe wound” from the conflict, and he expressed confidence in the prime minister’s ability to restore normalcy.

Access to Tigray is “the main obstacle at the moment,” he said, urging Abiy’s government to “grant us corridors, or whatever they call it, to provide assistance.”