The Ethiopian Government has denied that the Tigrayan rebels’ claim of capturing the strategic northern city of Kombolcha.
A spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front -TPLF, Getachew Reda, however, said its forces not only captured Kombolcha, but it also captured the airport.
The fighting in Kombolcha, south of Dessie, has fueled speculation that the TPLF is heading closer to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the administration in Amhara has issued a decree on Sunday ordering all government institutions to suspend their regular services and divert their budgets and their attention to “the survival campaign”
Also in a Facebook post, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has urged Ethiopians to use “any type of weapons … to block the destructive TPLF, to overturn it and bury it”.
He further added that “Dying for Ethiopia is a duty [for] all of us,” Abiy Ahmed said.
On the allegation of killing of hundreds of youths, the TPLF Spokesperson Getachew Reda told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location: “We don’t have to kill the youth. There was no resistance in Kombolcha.”
Kombolcha town is about 380km (235 miles) from the capital, Addis Ababa, and is the furthest south in Amhara that the TPLF has reached since pushing into the region in July. It suggested the TPLF was heading closer to the Ethiopian capital.
