Photos: Ethiopian Army Recaptures Strategically Important Town of Chifra, on Edge of Tigray State
19:58 GMT 29.11.2021 (Updated: 11:35 GMT 23.11.2022)
© AP Photo / AP Photo
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Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) have recaptured the town of Chifra from the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), state media reported on Sunday. The victory puts Ethiopian forces on the edge of Tigray state as the TPLF’s drive southward toward the capital stalls out.
A tweet by the state-owned network Fana Broadcasting on Sunday showed the Ethiopian national flag and the flag of Afar state flying above the town, noting that Afar Special Forces helped with its capture.
#Ethiopia: National army jointly with the #Afar Special Force has taken control of strategic town of #Chifra pic.twitter.com/Qd9IMz8UZ5
— FBC (Fana Broadcasting Corporate S.C.) (@fanatelevision) November 28, 2021
Other photos showed some of the results of the battle, including several wrecked Soviet-built T-62 tanks and Zu-23 anti-aircraft cannons used by Tigrayan forces.
Update
— شِفا العَفَرِي Shifa Al-Afari (@AfariShifa) November 28, 2021
➡️ After a fierce battle, Chifra was liberated, the army entred into the #Wollo
➡️ Afar fr with the help of the #ENDF ✈ fr destroyed 4 tanks and got a tank and a ZU23.
➡️ A large number of POWs of #TPLF.
➡️ 🔜 🕛 will witness the surprises of the season #NoMore pic.twitter.com/wVeeNt9oTd
“What you see behind me is a mountain area that was a stronghold for the enemy until yesterday,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told Oromia Broadcasting Network on Friday on the front lines in Afar. “Now we have managed to clear the area fully. The morale of the defense force is really great. The battle is underway with a great feat. Now we have taken Kasagita. Today, we will take over Chifra and Burka. We will continue until Ethiopia’s Freedom is ensured.”
He arrived on the front last week after pledging to take personal control over the struggle against the TPLF and its allies after they captured the town of Debre Sina, just 190 kilometers from the capital of Addis Ababa.
The victory means the TPLF has been almost totally pushed out of the lowlands and the path of advance eastward toward Mile, which sits on the A1 highway toward Djibouti and which the TPLF has been trying to press toward for weeks, is now blocked. The TPLF has also encountered stiff resistance by the ENDF and Afari forces east of Bati, to the south of Chifra, blocking its advance on Mile from the southwest.
Unconfirmed reports on Monday suggested the ENDF had also recaptured Bati, which is in eastern Amhara state, but there had been no official declaration of the victory by the government when this story went to publication.
According to local media, the TPLF, which is composed of mostly Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, pillaged mosques in Chifra and other towns in Muslim-majority Afar. Qafar Media shared images of a charred library and mosque, including burned Qurans, which they said were torched by the Tigrayan forces.
➡️This is a glimpse of how TPLF violates the sanctity and blood of the Afar people, destroying religious books and mosques in the towns of Sifra and Burka, Afar region. pic.twitter.com/uZ6RvMeohr
— QafarMedia (@QafarMedia) November 28, 2021
A Rebellion With US Support
The TPLF, which also calls itself the Tigrayan Defense Forces (TDF), launched an uprising against Abiy’s government in November 2020, attacking ENDF forces in the northern Tigray state after Tigrayan elections held in spite of a nationwide postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic were declared illegal. Although the ENDF made quick gains into Tigray, the TPLF regrouped in the countryside and drove them out of Tigray before launching their own offensive into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions in July.
The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for 27 years after leading the insurgency against the Marxist Derg military government, during which time Ethiopia became a key US partner in the War on Terror. However, Abiy’s rise to power in 2018, after other ethnicities in the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political alliance rejected further Tigrayan rule, set the stage for the present crisis. Political reforms by Abiy further weakened the TPLF’s leading power, including combining the alliance of ethnic-based parties into a single national Prosperity Party. In 2019, Abiy received a Nobel Peace Prize for signing a peace treaty with Eritrea, ending a 20-year-long border war launched by the TPLF that killed some 120,000 people.
The present conflict has created a massive humanitarian crisis, with more than 70,000 people fleeing across the border into neighboring Sudan and an estimated 4 million more internally displaced, according to United Nations data. There is no reliable death toll for the conflict. Tigrayans have alleged Abiy’s government has orchestrated a genocide in Tigray, which have been widely echoed in Western media. However, while the UN Human Rights Office and Ethiopian Human Rights Commission documented human rights abuses by all sides in the conflict, their report published earlier this month found no evidence of a genocide.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported earlier this month that hundreds of aid trucks were stuck in Semera, the capital of Afar, unable to proceed to the Tigray capital of Mek’ele due to airstrikes. The UN has said the TPLF is the primary cause, as does the government, while the TPLF blames the government. However, the office says that as of November 24, flights to Mek’ele have resumed.
Publicly, Washington has maintained a position of neutrality, demanding an immediate peace and placing economic and political sanctions on Ethiopia and its Eritrean allies for actions they say have “contributed to the crisis and conflict, which have undermined the stability and integrity of the Ethiopian state." However, last week, Sputnik reported that US and European diplomats had been secretly meeting with leading TPLF members, praising the TPLF’s gains and openly speaking of a “transition government” if and when the TPLF captures Addis Ababa.
