A few days after the official declaration of a truce by the federal government of Ethiopia, officially sanctioned to allow the flow of humanitarian aids towards Tigray, local sources have reported the influx of several soldiers of the federal army near the border between the regional state of Amhara and Tigray.
More than 30 buses would have transported on March 28 several hundreds of soldiers in the city of Kobo, officially to carry out a rotation of personnel on duty along the border line and to facilitate the activation of humanitarian corridors in the direction of Tigray.
According to what has been declared by the Tigrayan authorities of the TPLF, in spite of the official declaration of the truce by the government in Addis Ababa, no real change would have affected the border line, where the two armies continue to maintain their positions and where no humanitarian corridor would have been actually opened.
The fear on the Tigrinya front is that the influx of ENDF troops may be instrumental in launching new military operations, or to prevent the possibility of opening the humanitarian corridors promised with the official announcement of the ceasefire on March 24.
Sharp denial by the federal government, which said it had authorized several humanitarian flights to Tigray, as well as the opening of a corridor in the Afar region, along the Abala road, which was closed according to Addis Ababa on the initiative of the military forces of Tigray.
The United Nations finally confirmed on April 2 that a first convoy of humanitarian aids has arrived in the city of Erebti, in the territory of the regional state of Afar controlled by Tigrayan forces, and should soon be able to continue transiting Tigray carrying 500 metric tons of aid sent by the World Food Program. The convoy is headed to the capital Mekelle, while a second load of 1000 metric tons is expected to transit the same area during the next few days.
Internal tensions within the Ethiopian federation, however, are not limited to the border with Tigray. On March 29, 26 people were killed and 15 wounded in the regional state of Oromia, as a result of the ambush to a vehicle carrying some units of the local militias.
The versions provided by the authorities of the two regional states are conflicting. According to Oromia sources, the ambush was carried out near the village of Korke, on the initiative of militiamen from the regional state of Amhara, while on the contrary, according to the version provided by the Bahir Dar authorities, the episode was due to repeated clashes between the forces of Minjar Shenroka, in the area of North Shewa, and those of the Fentelleworda militia, in East Shewa.
Finally, the request formulated on March 24 by the governor of the regional state of Amhara – Yilkal Kefale – to the Russian ambassador in Ethiopia, Evgenj Terekhin, for Moscow to help the regional administration in the process of post-conflict reconstruction, caused a stir. The Russian ambassador said he was willing to facilitate an immediate first action in favor of the reconstruction of educational institutions, suggesting that a broader form of collaboration could then be further supported by Russia in the region.
