Forces close to the Ethiopian Executive have accused neighboring Eritrea of having deployed soldiers in the turbulent state of Tigray, in the north of the country, with the purpose of supporting the main insurgent group in the region. Eritrean authorities have immediately rejected these accusations and have presented them as a deliberate attempt to stir up a new confrontation between both States.
The pro-government Tigray Peace Forces (FPT) have denounced on social media that "the Eritrean troops that murdered and raped thousands of civilians during the last round of the war" crossed into Ethiopia this Wednesday through Adigrat, in Tigray.
The Ethiopian government has been blaming countries like Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt for providing support to the so-called Forces of the Coalition for the Survival of the Peoples of Ethiopia, an armed alliance articulated around the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the former regional authorities, a central actor in the war that began in 2020 and which, after the Pretoria agreements, had been sidelined until its recent reappearance.
The "last round" of 2020-2022, as defined by the FPT, was one of the deadliest military episodes in the recent history of the African continent. Estimates from the Ethiopian government and the African Union place the number of deaths in the clashes between the Ethiopian Executive and the TPLF between 100,000 and 600,000 people. During that period, Eritrea aligned with the authorities of Addis Ababa but ended up breaking relations after being left out of the peace agreement signed in South Africa, which led Ethiopia to announce the closure of its Embassy in Asmara at the beginning of this month.
After the FPT described this "demonstration of the alliance between Eritrea and the TPLF" as an "invasion and a violation of Ethiopian sovereignty," the Eritrean government has publicly denied it again on social media. Its Minister of Information and spokesperson, Yemane Meskel, has attacked the "Potemkin Party," as he refers to the Ethiopian government and its Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, whom he accuses of "constantly beating the drums of war" with the intention of unleashing a conflict against Eritrea to achieve access to the sea.
"This has been written in stone and clear as crystal for three years. The general objective of the Potemkin Party is to create a false narrative of 'self-defense' to camouflage an aggressive war," added the Ethiopian spokesperson before accusing Addis Ababa once again of perpetrating "a reckless and flagrant violation of international law that cannot be erased by misleading narratives."