Ethiopia. Premier Abiy fields an army of kids for the final victory against the TPLF
Sky News reporter, John Sparks, denounce that the majority of federal soldiers that will be utilized on imminent offensive against TPLF is composed by students aged 16 to 19. Amhara Leadership is confidant to obtain the final victory thanks to Turkey drones, Ethiopian Republic Gard, Amhara militias and Eritrean troops. Meantime it’s seem very difficult to obtain new credits from G20 in order to finance the civil war. Ethiopian regime has desperate need to report victory during October.
Amhara nationalist leadership spokesman and Prime Minister: Abiy Ahmed Ali, is grouping new federal army divisions: ENDF in the Amhara region along the A2 highway near the city of Dessie recently wrested from the control of the regular Tigray army : TDF.
The confirmation of this concentration of troops comes from the journalist John Sparks of Sky News who personally went there. Sparks claims he saw dozens of trucks, tanks and heavy artillery parked on either side of the highway. Summary trainings of the recruits is also underway in the area.
Sparks reports that the majority of federal soldiers are middle and high school students aged 16 to 19. Among them many girls. After the defeat in Tigray last May, the Amhara leadership found itself with a massacred federal army. Thousands of experienced soldiers killed or seriously injured. Several cases of desertion so widespread that the government was forced to impose state secrets and ban the media from talking about the phenomenon.
Technically the ENDF’s offensive and defensive capabilities have been seriously compromised in Tigray. Confirmation of this came in June when federal soldiers hastily withdrew from the Afar and Amhara region in the face of the TPLF offensives, leaving local militias alone to defend the regions. The Ethiopian Premier was forced to reorganize what remained of the federal army and send it back to the Afar and Amhara fronts due to the dangerous political fracture that was being created within his party: the Prosperity Party where the powerful Amhara leadership accused the Premier of treason.
To avoid a dismissal by the leadership and the Amhara military, Abiy risked his best unit alongside the Republican Guard, the only elite unit remaining loyal to the government. The ENDF was able to stop the TPLF offensive only thanks to the intervention of Eritrean troops who now wear Ethiopian uniforms but respond to a separate command under the control of the dictator Isaias Afwerki.
The testimony of the Sky News correspondent confirms the forced enlistment of thousands of young people who have been trapped by Amhara leadership to strengthen the decimated federal army. Last August, President Agegnehu Teshager ordered all middle and high school students to enlist to defend the Amhara homeland from the Tegaru “terrorists”. Thousands of other young people have been coercively enlisted in other parts of the country.
During the conflict in Amhara, there was evidence of the use of war drones supplied by the Saudi Arab Emirates. These are UCAV drones of the VTOL type that can only be armed with two 120 mm mortar rounds with lower precision than the missiles supplied to Chinese drones that the Ethiopian Premier was unable to secure from his ally, Beijing. VTOL drones have limited utility which further diminishes in urban areas.
The Addis Ababa regime preferred not to comment on the testimony of journalist John Sparks. The question arises. How can an army of kids, mostly forcibly enlisted, hope to defeat the veteran TDF soldiers? According to personal information from regional military observers, this army of students will be used as cannon fodder, throwing vague thousands of kids at the defenses of the Tegaru to weaken their resistance and make them waste ammunitions.
The bulk of the operations will be supported by the superseded unit of ENDF veterans, the Republican Guard and the Eritrean army, already present with at least 4 divisions in Amhara. The units prepared for the imminent offensive in October will enjoy air coverage. Some sources of information say that war drones from Turkey are arriving in Ethiopia.
The Amhara FANO militia, famous for the crimes against humanity committed in Tigray from November 2020 to April 2021, and the Sheret Lebashoche militia, which has been strengthened by new recruits thanks to the mass mobilization in Amhara, will also participate in the offensive.
The Sheret Lebashoche are even more fanatical and cruel than the FANO militiamen. They vowed to defeat the TPLF and wipe the Tigrinya ethnic group off the face of the earth. They are commanded by an Amhara nationalist fanatic: Jamilu Teferu.
The Sherets are allegedly at the origin of the recent reports made by Amhara civilians of war crimes committed in Amhara by soldiers of the regular army of Tigray. The TPLF, through its Public Relations Office, has rejected the accusations, asking for an international and independent investigation.
The Tigray Defense Forces is also grouping several divisions around the A2 highway and the city of Dessie to stop the Ethiopian-Eritrean offensive. The TPLF is in trouble due to a drastic decrease in the supply of weapons and ammunition from neighbouring Sudan. After the failed coup in Khartoum, the Amhara leadership and the Eritrean dictator Afwerki supported the rebellion of the Beja tribe which now controls large areas of Port Sudan and Kassala and is preparing for a direct confrontation with the Sudanese army.
The Beja are a nomadic people settled in the mountainous areas between the Red Sea and the Nile and Atbara rivers between south-eastern Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. The Beja rebellion prevents the TPLF from using Port Sudan and Kassala airport to receive supplies. The federal army has complete dominion of the skies. It is precisely on the air raids and extensive use of war drones that the Amhara leadership is convinced that it will bring a decisive and final victory over the “terrorists” of the TPLF.
At the moment there are no groupings of troops on the Oromia front. According to some regional military observers, the Amhara leadership does not wish to launch two offensives in Tigray and Oromia at the same time, focusing on the TPLF. Once the regular Tigray army is defeated, a minor offensive will be launched against the Oromo Liberation Army to crush the Oromo resistance.
Yesterday, October 6, United Nations Secretary-General Guterres asked Ethiopia to revoke the order to expel the leaders of the UN humanitarian agencies and allow them to take up the work to assist the Ethiopian people. Guterres also asked the Ethiopian Ambassador to the UN to provide a copy of any Addis Ababa government document addressed to any UN entity in connection with the wrongdoing of executives who were victims of the expulsions. The question follows a statement by the Ethiopian government stating that the United Nations has deliberately ignored various official reports on the work of its leaders in Ethiopia considered subversive and partisan of the TPLF. The Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Nations refused to answer the Secretary General on the subject.
Adding to the pressure from the United Nations is a serious complication that could jeopardize Ethiopia’s obtaining new credit lines at the G20 and its request to cancel part of the existing ones. A report was published yesterday, completed last week, by the College of William and Mary in the United States. The report reveals various Chinese credits covertly granted to Ethiopia in 2020 that could increase the already high percentage of Ethiopian debt relative to national GDP by 5 points.
The revelations of the report reinforce the concerns of the G20s about the lack of transparency and the possibility of debt repayments by the Ethiopian government. “The possibility of obtaining new credits or cancelling part of the existing ones is now extremely difficult for the Ethiopian government,” said Virag Forizs, an African economist at the consulting firm Capital Economics in London.
“It seems likely that the recently uncovered debts will complicate the debt restructuring talks,” Forizs said. “These previously undeclared debts are contingent liabilities for the Ethiopian government and therefore could increase the total public debt burden in the future.”
China last month turned down a new Ethiopian loan request worth $ 400 million which, of course, was needed for the war effort. The refusal was accompanied by the warning to the Ethiopian government that the competent Chinese authorities will start an audit on existing loans to study the possibilities of recovery.
The difficulties that have arisen in obtaining relief from existing debts and accessing to new ones, risk to put Amhara regime in a situation that will not be able to finance a long-lasting civil war. For this the top Amhara leaders: Agegnehu Teshager, Temesgen Tiruneh and their spokesman Abiy are aiming their political survival on the final victory they hope to achieve this October.
