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Forces from Ethiopia’s rebellious Tigray region said on Wednesday they were in talks to forge a military alliance with insurgents from Ethiopia’s most populous region, Oromiya, heaping pressure on the central government in Addis Ababa.
The move could signal an escalation in the country’s nine-month-old war and comes a day after the government urged citizens to join the fight against resurgent Tigrayan forces.
“We are in talks with the Oromo Liberation Army,” Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), told Reuters Agency.
The TPLF controls the Tigray region in Ethiopia’s north and its forces have been fighting federal troops since November in a conflict that has caused a major refugee crisis.
In recent weeks, the conflict has spread into two neighbouring regions, Afar and Amhara, displacing about another 250,000 people and raising international concerns about a wider destabilisation of Africa’s second most populous nation.
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The government declared a unilateral ceasefire in June, after Tigrayan forces recaptured the regional capital of Mekelle. Tigrayan forces have dismissed the ceasefire, saying the government should agree to their conditions for a truce.
