Ethiopia says Tigray ceasefire a work in progress amid fears of famine

The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) - the former rulers of Ethiopia's Tigray region - said on Monday they were back in control of the regional capital Mekelle after nearly eight months of fighting.

The government declared a unilateral ceasefire but the TPLF dismissed it as a joke and hostilities persisted on Thursday.

A bridge over the Tekeze River near the northern town of Shire has been destroyed and as a result getting aid to the war-ravaged region would be "even more severely hampered than before, the International Rescue Committee said.

Shire, along with several other towns in Tigray, is now under control of the Tigrayan forces.

In reference to the ceasefire, Ethiopia's foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said: "For this to be fully implemented, as they say, it needs two to tango, so the other side needs to react."

"So, for example, how and which way is aid going to enter, and what is going to happen with flights. We will see as we proceed. As of now we don't have a ready-made answer. It is a work in progress."

A TPLF spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday the Ethiopian government's shutdown of services in the region was a continued act of war.

With electricity and phone and internet lines cut to the region, aid agencies are severely limited in their ability to reach people in dire need of food and other services.

Hospitals in Mekelle are running on generators due to the electricity blackout, Alyona Synenko, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said.

The United Nations said in early June at least 350,000 people in Tigray were facing famine. The U.S. Agency for International Development last week estimated the number at 900,000.

"It is urgent to get additional staff and supplies into Tigray, restore electricity and telecoms, and ensure that cash and fuel are available throughout the region for the continuity of humanitarian operations," a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Hayat Abu Salah, said.

SATELLITE EQUIPMENT DESTROYED

In Mekelle, the streets were calm on Thursday morning and shops and markets were open for business, Abu Salah said.

Electricity and telecommunications remained down and U.N. offices were relying on limited remaining satellites after Ethiopian soldiers destroyed equipment at the UNICEF office in the city, she said.

On Wednesday, the United Nations was able to conduct assessment missions to several towns now back under TPLF control, she said, mentioning that the road between Axum and Adwa, in the centre of the northern Tigray, was clear.

"We are preparing for resumption of aid," Abu Salah said, saying that 5.2 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance in Tigray.

"We are here, we are staying, we will deliver."

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed acknowledged government troops had left Mekelle after months of fighting. He said it was because the city was no longer the "centre of gravity for conflicts". read more He downplayed the withdrawal, saying Ethiopian forces had left Mekelle to focus on more important security threats such as tensions with neighbouring Sudan and with Egypt over the huge dam Ethiopia is building on the Blue Nile.

But a TPLF spokesman called Abiy's comments a "lie", saying that government troops lost and were forced to leave Mekelle.

Abiy has come under international pressure to bring an end to the conflict, which has been punctuated by reports of gang-rapes and mass killings of civilians. At least 12 aid workers have been killed.

Abiy acknowledged in a speech to parliament in March that atrocities including rape have occurred and pledged that any member of the Ethiopian army who committed crimes against civilians would be held accountable.

The government's continued shutdown of electricity and other services through the region makes deaths from famine inevitable, said one Western diplomat working in the Horn of Africa.

Abiy's government has been battling the TPLF since late last year, when it accused the then-governing party of Tigray of attacking military bases across the region.