Afar Regional Special Forces and militia have repelled a fierce assault by Tigrayan fighters seeking to control Kalbertiresu, Abaala and Megalle areas, witnesses have said.<\/p>\n
The Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) troops sought to push the Afar forces by firing heavy artillery but did not succeed to control the areas \u2013 now effectively besieged by Afar Special Forces and militia.<\/p>\n
Heavy fighting is underway in Abaala, a border town in Afar region with about 40 kilometers away from Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region.<\/p>\n
The Tigray forces have attempted to gain lands in Chewbere and Zarima areas but were pushed by Amhara Special Forces and Fano fighters.<\/p>\n
There has been exchange fire in Wolkaite front using heavy weapons, the witnesses have said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General Anonio Guterres said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d to learn that \u201ca demonstrable effort is finally underway\u201d to peacefully resolve the more than a year-long conflict in northern Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
In a statement released on Wednesday by his Spokesperson, Ant\u00f3nio\u00a0Guterres spoke on the phone\u00a0with\u00a0the former Nigerian president,\u00a0Olusegun Obasanjo,\u00a0who is also the African Union\u2019s chief envoy to the Horn of Africa. They exchanged views on the conflict that\u00a0has affected millions of people across\u00a0the country\u00a0and the rest of the region, since\u00a0fighting began\u00a0in northern Tigray, in\u00a0November 2020.<\/p>\n
Obasanjo has been shuttling between the parties since he took up his post in August, trying to build support for a cease-fire and talks.<\/p>\n
In the call, Obasanjo also \u201cexpressed optimism that there is now a real opportunity for political and eplomatic resolution of the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Afar Regional Special Forces and militia have repelled a fierce assault by Tigrayan fighters seeking to control Kalbertiresu, Abaala and Megalle areas, witnesses have said. The Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) troops sought to push the Afar forces by firing…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":55691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4993],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Mule20.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55692,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55690\/revisions\/55692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}