Oct. 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) has announced the release this week of 9,400 suspected prisoners of war in an “amnesty” described as a goodwill gesture ahead of negotiations to end a conflict that has been raging for almost two years with the Ethiopian government and its ally, Eritrea.
The release, announced on Twitter by the group’s foreign spokesman, Kindeya Gebrehiwot, affects Ethiopian and Eritrean prisoners and among them there are 500 women, as the newspaper ‘The East African’ has been able to investigate.
The Ethiopian Government has not yet ruled on this matter. In a previous “amnesty” announced in May, the authorities denied that the 4,200 prisoners then released by the TPLF had participated in the conflict, but were actually civilians kidnapped in various parts of the Amhara and Afar regions.
The spokesman has pointed out that those suspected of committing “major crimes” will remain in the group’s custody. “The irony is that both regimes continue to deny their existence,” he added.
This announcement comes at a time when Tigray leaders have confirmed their attendance at long-awaited peace talks scheduled for Monday in South Africa.
The move also comes after Ethiopian forces recently captured the strategic town of Shire in northwestern Tigray.
The conflict in Ethiopia erupted after an attack by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) against the Army’s main base, located in Mekelle, after which the Ethiopian Prime Minister ordered an offensive against the group after months of tensions at the political and administrative. A “humanitarian truce” is currently in force, although both sides have accused each other of preventing the delivery of aid.
The TPLF accuses Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of stirring up tensions since he came to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to take office.
Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within the ethnically based coalition that had governed Ethiopia since 1991, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, seeing them as an attempt to undermine his influence.
