About 25,000 Ethiopians fleeing conflict in the Tigray region have crossed into neighbouring Sudan, with the UN working to find them shelter. AFP
About 25,000 Ethiopians fleeing conflict in the Tigray region have crossed into neighbouring Sudan, with the UN working to find them shelter. AFP
About 25,000 Ethiopians fleeing conflict in the Tigray region have crossed into neighbouring Sudan, with the UN working to find them shelter. AFP
About 25,000 Ethiopians fleeing conflict in the Tigray region have crossed into neighbouring Sudan, with the UN working to find them shelter. AFP

Ethiopian government says it seized a town in Tigray


  • English
  • Arabic

The government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said it captured another town in the northern Tigray region after nearly two weeks of conflict that is spilling into Eritrea and destabilising the wider Horn of Africa.

Hundreds have died, at least 20,000 refugees fled to Sudan and there have been reports of atrocities since Mr Abiy ordered air strikes and a ground offensive against Tigray's rulers for defying his authority.

The conflict could jeopardise a recent economic boost, lead to ethnic bloodshed elsewhere in Africa's second most populous nation and tarnish the reputation of Mr Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for a peace pact with Eritrea.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front, which governs the Tigray region of more than five million people, accused Eritrea of sending tanks and thousands of soldiers across the border to support Ethiopian federal troops. Eritrea denies the claim.

The Front said its forces fired rockets into Eritrea at the weekend.

A task force set up by Mr Abiy, Africa's youngest leader, to manage the conflict said federal troops liberated the town of Alamata from the Front.

"They fled, taking along about 10,000 prisoners," the task force said, without specifying where the prisoners were from.

"Residents said many youth above the age of 14 had already fled the area for fear of being recruited by TPLF."

With communications mainly down and media barred from the area, Reuters could not independently verify assertions made by rival sides.

There was no immediate comment from Tigray's leaders on events in Alamata, near the border with Amhara regional state, about 120 kilometres from Tigray's capital Mekelle.

Fighting spreads

The fighting spread beyond Tigray into Amhara, where forces are allied with Mr Abiy's troops. On Friday, rockets were fired at two airports in Amhara in what the Front said was retaliation for government air strikes.

Map locates Eritrea and the Tigray region of Ethiopia
Map locates Eritrea and the Tigray region of Ethiopia

Tigray leaders accuse Mr Abiy, who is from the largest Oromo ethnic group, of persecuting them and purging them from government and security forces in the past two years. He said they rose up against him by attacking a military base.

The Ethiopian National Defence Force has about 140,000 personnel and plenty of experience from fighting militants in Somalia, rebel groups in border regions and a two-decade border stand-off with Eritrea.

But many senior officers were Tigrayan, much of its most powerful weaponry is in the region and the Front has seized the powerful Northern Command's headquarters in Mekelle.

There are reports of defections among Tigrayan members of the defence force. The Front has a formidable history, spearheading the rebel march to Addis Ababa that ousted a Marxist dictatorship in 1991 and bearing the brunt of a war with Eritrea that killed hundreds of thousands between 1998 and 2000.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, a long-time foe of the Tigrayan leaders, controls a vast standing army which the CIA says comprises 200,000 personnel.

Mr Abiy once fought alongside the Tigrayans and was a partner in government with them until 2018 when he took office, winning early plaudits for pursuing peace with Eritrea, starting to liberalise the economy and opening a repressive political system.

The UN, among other groups, urged Mr Abiy to negotiate with the Tigrayans and there have been reports the Ugandan government could mediate talks.

But Mr Abiy's Tigray task force denied that and repeated that it was committed to upholding the law in Tigray.

It previously said there would be no talks until Tigrayan leaders were arrested.

Analysis

Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The specs

Engine: 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged V8

Transmission: nine-speed automatic

Power: 630bhp

Torque: 900Nm

Price: Dh810,000

The specs
  • Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
  • Power: 640hp
  • Torque: 760nm
  • On sale: 2026
  • Price: Not announced yet

The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience

by David Gilmour

Allen Lane

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Global Fungi Facts

• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil

Gothia Cup 2025

4,872 matches 

1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Honeymoonish
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Elie%20El%20Samaan%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENour%20Al%20Ghandour%2C%20Mahmoud%20Boushahri%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs

A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.

The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.

Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.

Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

Awar Qalb

Director: Jamal Salem

Starring: Abdulla Zaid, Joma Ali, Neven Madi and Khadija Sleiman

Two stars