| Asmara rocket attacks | |
|---|---|
| Part of Tigray conflict | |
 | |
| Location | Asmara, Eritrea |
| Date | 14 November 2020, 27-28 November 2020 |
| Target | Asmara International Airport |
Attack type | Rocket attack |
| Weapons | PHL-03 MLRS |
| Perpetrators | Tigray People's Liberation Front |
The Tigray People's Liberation Front fired rockets at Asmara (Eritrea) on 14 and 27 November 2020 during the Tigray War. [1] [2]
According to Mesfin Hagos, former Eritrean Minister of Defence and ardent opposition leader against the Eritrean government, during 12 and 13 November, 30 military flights carrying "thousands" of federal Ethiopian soldiers arrived in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. Mesfin interpreted the flights as a part of Eritrean–Ethiopian military cooperation in the Tigray War that preceded the 14 November rocket attacks. [3]
On 14 November 2020, multiple rockets launched from Ethiopia hit Asmara. Two rockets hit Asmara International Airport. [1]
The same day the Eritrean government confirmed that missiles were launched at the capital but denied the city had been hit, saying that they landed in the countryside. The attack came just hours after the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) threatened to target Eritrea. [4]
The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Tibor Nagy condemned the TPLF for the rocket attacks calling them "unjustifiable attacks against Eritrea ... its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray." [5] The Secretary of State of the United States Mike Pompeo blasted the TPLF for the attack, calling on it and Government of Ethiopia to de-escalate. [6]
The TPLF again fired rockets at Eritrea on 27 November, numbering four according to the media, though the group did not claim responsibility. Eritrean Press stated that they landed near Asmara as well as surrounding towns. One diplomat stated that there were reports of one landing to the south of Asmara. Another diplomat said that one of them struck a neighbourhood of Asmara but this couldn't be confirmed. No casualties were reported in the attack. [2]
Six explosions in Asmara during the night of 28 November were reported by United States State Department, although the reason was not immediately clear. [7] Diplomats based in Addis Ababa told Agence France-Presse that the explosions were caused by rockets, which apparently struck the Asmara International Airport and Eritrean military facilities. [8]
Seyoum Mesfin Gebredingel was an Ethiopian politician and diplomat. He was Ethiopia's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 2010 and served as Ethiopia's Ambassador to China from 2011 to 2017.
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The Tigray People's Liberation Front, also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist, paramilitary group, and the former ruling party of Ethiopia. It was classified as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government from May 2021 until its removal from the list in March 2023. In older texts and Amharic publications, it is known as Woyane or Wayane.
The Eritrean–Ethiopian War, also known as the Badme War, was a major armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that took place from May 1998 to June 2000.
Abay "Amha" Tsehaye was an Ethiopian politician and a prominent personality in the Ethiopian political discourse. He was active in the political scene from the early 1960s up to late 2018, initially as one of the founding members of the TPLF, followed by important positions from 1990 to 2018 within the EPRDF, which led the Ethiopian government, after which he retired and moved to live in Axum and Mekelle in Tigray.
Abiy Ahmed Ali is an Ethiopian politician serving as the third Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018, and as a leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea". Abiy served as the third chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that governed Ethiopia for 28 years and the first person of Oromo descent to hold that position. Abiy is a member of the Ethiopian parliament, and was a member of the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), one of the then four coalition parties of the EPRDF, until its rule ceased in 2019 and he formed his own party, the Prosperity Party.
Events of 2020 in Ethiopia.
The Tigray War was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between forces allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other.
The Mekelle offensive was a military campaign fought between the armed forces of Ethiopia and the Tigray Region to reach the city of Mekelle in the Tigray Region, from 17 November to 28 November 2020. It was part of the Tigray War.
This timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
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Events in the year 2021 in Ethiopia.
Beginning with the onset of the Tigray War in November 2020, acute food shortages leading to death and starvation became widespread in northern Ethiopia, and the Tigray, Afar and Amhara Regions in particular. As of August 2022, there are 13 million people facing acute food insecurity, and an estimated 150,000–200,000 had died of starvation by March 2022. In the Tigray Region alone, 89% of people are in need of food aid, with those facing severe hunger reaching up to 47%. In a report published in June 2021, over 350,000 people were already experiencing catastrophic famine conditions. It is the worst famine to happen in East Africa since 2011–2012.
The Tigrayan peace process encompasses the series of proposals, meetings, agreements and actions that aimed to resolve the Tigray War.
This Timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
In the late hours of 7 January 2022, the Ethiopian Air Force (ETAF) carried out an airstrike on a camp for internally displaced persons set up in Dedebit Elementary School, located in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Between 56 and 59 people were killed in the attack, and at least 30 others were left injured.
Abiy Ahmed's tenure as prime minister of Ethiopia began on 2 April 2018 with his swearing-in at the Ethiopian parliament, succeeding Hailemariam Desalegn. Abiy is the first person of Oromo descent to hold the office, and became chair of the ruling Prosperity Party after the dissolution of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in November 2019.
The 1995 Ethiopian Federal Constitution formalizes an ethnic federalism law aimed at undermining long-standing ethnic imperial rule, reducing ethnic tensions, promoting regional autonomy, and upholding unqualified rights to self-determination and secession in a state with more than 80 different ethnic groups. But the constitution is divisive, both among Ethiopian nationalists who believe it undermines centralized authority and fuels interethnic conflict, and among ethnic federalists who fear that the development of its vague components could lead to authoritarian centralization or even the maintenance of minority ethnic hegemony. Parliamentary elections since 1995 have taken place every five years since enactment. All but one of these have resulted in government by members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political coalition, under three prime ministers. The EPRDF was under the effective control of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which represents a small ethnic minority. In 2019 the EPRDF, under Abiy, was dissolved and he inaugurated the pan-ethnic Prosperity Party which won the 2021 Ethiopian Election, returning him as prime minister. But both political entities were different kinds of responses to the ongoing tension between constitutional ethnic federalism and the Ethiopian state's authority. Over the same period, and all administrations, a range of major conflicts with ethnic roots have occurred or continued, and the press and availability of information have been controlled. There has also been dramatic economic growth and liberalization, which has itself been attributed to, and used to justify, authoritarian state policy.
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The events of the Tigray War have sparked numerous reactions and protests worldwide.
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