Rebel armed forces take airport in Ethiopia

An unidentified employee of the airport Alula Ababa Nega de Mekele stated that AFP was sent home on Wednesday morning. “We were told that the Tigrai Defense Forces (TDF) had taken control of the airport,” he said.

The acquisition of the airport by the TDF was confirmed to AFP by a foreign security source in Ethiopia.

According to the specialized website Flight Radar, a Wednesday morning flight between Addis Ababa and Mekele was cancelled.

This airport, the most important airport in the regional state, is usually defended by soldiers from the Ethiopian Federal Army.

Contacted by AFP, neither the Vice-President of the Tigrai People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a party currently banned that actually governs the regional state, nor the spokesman of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, responded.

The airport’s takeover takes place three days after the announcement by seven opposition groups to the federal government — including the TPLF, the Amhara Fano militias and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) — of the formation of an alliance to “fall” the executive of Addis Ababa.

Federal forces have carried out dozens of drone attacks on Tigrai since the beginning of August.

The removal of the TPLF from central power and the attempts of centralisation by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's executive fueled strong tensions between Addis Ababa and Tigrai.

The rupture worsened with the holding of regional elections considered illegal by the federal government and the subsequent suspension of funding to Tigrai, culminating in a military confrontation opened in November last year, after allegations of attacks on the base of the federal army.

With the formation of the Tigrai Defense Forces (TDF) and the intervention of Eritrean troops in support of the federal government, the conflict resulted in a devastating humanitarian crisis marked by the detachment of more than two million people, thousands of dead and reports of massacres.