Tigray rebel forces seize Ethiopia regional airport

ADDIS ABABA

Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters walk in lines towards another field in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 30, 2021. (AFP File Photo)

Tigrayan rebel forces in northern Ethiopia have seized control of the airport in the regional capital, security and local sources told AFP on Sept. 23, at a time of rising tensions with the federal government.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region, fought a devastating civil war with the federal government in 2020-2022 that killed some 600,000 people, according to African Union estimates.

Sporadic clashes in recent months have raised fears of a return to war.

“While we were on our way to the airport for work, our supervisor called the driver and told him that the airport had been taken over by Tigray forces. Since there were no flights, he told us to return home,” an employee at Alula Aba Nega Airport in the Tigrayan capital Mekelle told AFP.

A small number of federal police guard the airport, and their condition was unknown.

Flight Radar, an air traffic tracker, showed that the Sept. 23 morning’s flight between Mekelle and the federal capital, Addis Ababa, had been canceled.

“Ethiopian Airlines has temporarily suspended flights to Mekele, Axum and Shire effective today, due to the current situation in the Tigray region,” the national carrier said in a statement.

The TPLF ruled the whole of Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018 before being sidelined with the rise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, eventually triggering the civil war.