Federal Troops

Ethiopian federal forces have taken “full control” of the Tigray region’s capital Mekelle, the prime minister and the military’s chief of staff said on Saturday evening. Authorities had said earlier that government forces were in the final stages of an offensive in the region and would take care to protect civilians in Mekelle, a city of 500 000 people. There was no immediate comment from the Tigrayan forces in the northern region, who have been fighting government troops for the past three weeks. “The federal government is now fully in control of the city of Mekelle,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement posted on his Twitter page. That followed a statement saying the same from the army chief of staff, Birhanu Jula, on the military’s official Facebook page. Claims from all sides ...