4 November Northern Command attacks

The 4 November Northern Command attacks were attacks on the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) Northern Command headquarters in Mekelle[1] and bases in Adigrat,[2] Agula,[2] Dansha,[3] and Sero[4] in the Tigray Region by armed forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on 4 November 2020 during the Tigray conflict.[1] The 4 November attacks were stated by the federal Ethiopian government to justify the ENDF's military action against the Tigray Region which followed the attacks.[3][2]

Background
Main article: Tigray War

The attacks took place in the context of major political changes in Ethiopia during 2018–2020, in which the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) lost control of federal Ethiopian institutions, while retaining power in the Tigray Region and resisting federal control. On 2 November 2020, Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the TPLF and Tigray Region, stated in a press conference that the ENDF planned to attack the Tigray Region.[5]

TPLF statements

The TPLF described the attacks as a pre-emptive strike since it expected to be attacked by the ENDF.[2] Sekoutoure Getachew (also Sekuture) of the TPLF described the 4 November attacks as "pre-emptive", an "internationally known practice"[6] and an "imperative".[3]

Wondimu Asamew of the TPLF stated, "There was no attack" and that the story of the attacks was a fictional pretext for attacking TPLF forces.[3]

Attacks on bases

Adigrat

BBC News interviewed an ENDF sergeant, Bulcha, about the attack on an ENDF base near Adigrat. The base was surrounded by hundreds of TPLF special forces and militias, including Tigrayan soldiers from the camp who had defected to the TPLF, after 23:30 EAT 3 November. Bulcha together with other soldiers requested a colonel to unlock a storeroom with the soldiers' weapons. The colonel refused. Bulcha suspected that the colonel, an ethnic Tigrayan, refused on behalf of the TPLF. The soldiers eventually obtained their weapons, by which time TPLF forces had started shooting.[2]

A shooting battle started at 01:00 EAT 4 November, at a distance of 50 m between the two sides. Bulcha claimed that there were 32 ENDF fatalities and 100 TPLF fatalities. The battle ended when ENDF commanders ordered their soldiers to return their weapons to the storeroom. Priests and town elders negotiated a surrender, which took place at 16:00, with the ENDF soldiers rendering their arms to the TPLF.[2]

The ENDF soldiers were taken to a TPLF base at Abiy Addi, 150 km to the south-west, where they were held for two weeks and provided with tea, bread and not much water. Bulcha and his colleagues' personal valuables were confiscated. After negotiating the burning of their uniforms to avoid them being re-used by the TPLF, the ENDF soldiers were transported in trucks, each carrying 500 soldiers, to the border between Tigray Region and Amhara Region at the Tekezé River, which they crossed by boat. The soldiers walked 16 hours to Soqota where they were lodged at a police compound and the wounded hospitalised.[2]

An ENDF soldier at a different ENDF base near Adigrat, also interviewed by BBC News, was on guard duty from 22:00 to 24:00 EAT 3 November. He heard gunshots after finishing his guard duty. TPLF special forces and militias entered the camp, ordering the ENDF soldiers to surrender. The ENDF soldiers surrendered after being ordered to by their senior officers, Tigrayans. The ENDF soldiers were transported to Idaga Hamus on 6 November, kept there for a week, and taken to Abiy Addi, where they were kept for three weeks in small rooms with "very crammed conditions". The witness was allowed to leave and transported with others to the Amhara Region border at Tekezé River on trucks, after which they crossed the river and go to Soqota. He described the truck journey as "very difficult", during which some of the soldiers fell off the trucks and broke their legs.[2]

The BBC News witnesses stated that senior commanders, radio operators, women soldiers and soldiers with heavy weapons skills were not allowed to leave the Abiy Addi detention site.[2]

Agula

The ENDF base at Agula was surrounded and called for rescue at 23:30 EAT 3 November.[2]

Dansha

Just before midnight on the evening of 3 November, ENDF member Hussen Besheir at an ENDF camp for the Northern Command Fifth Battalion near Dansha was on guard when ten Tigrayan special forces personnel requested to meet the camp's commander. Hussen refused, an argument started, and guns were fired.[3]

Rifle and grenade battles in the Dansha attack lasted for most of the night. The attackers included former ENDF forces who had defected to the TPLF.[3]

Agence France Presse (AFP) journalists visiting Dansha after the event described the military barracks as "bullet-scarred", a few shops boarded up, and most of the town as "unscathed".[3]

Mekelle

The Northern Command headquarters in the Tigrayan capital city Mekelle was attacked on 4 November. Most of the staff there were administrative and the headquarters were easily captured.[1]

Sero

ENDF soldiers Takele Ambaye and Molla Kassa stated that the Sero base near the Eritrean border was attacked at 05:00 EAT on 4 November. According to the two soldiers' report, the ENDF forces shot at the attackers, initially succeeding in defending their base. The base was sieged by TPLF forces. ENDF soldiers rationed their food supplies, which lasted for eight days. On the tenth day of the siege, a six-hour battle took place, with the TPLF using tanks, anti-aircraft guns and mortars. The ENDF soldiers surrendered.[4]

4 November dinner party mass arrest

Mohammed Tessema of the ENDF stated in early December 2020 that 1000 senior commanders had been taken prisoner by TPLF forces on the evening of 4 November after being "invited to a dinner party" by the TPLF.[7][8]

In its 11 December 2020 statement, the ENDF said that it had freed the 1000 commanders, who had been held at Adet.[7] On 13 December, the ENDF issued arrest warrants for Major General Tsadkan Gebretensay, Colonel Berhe WoldeMichael and Commissioner Yehdego Seyoum, stating that Berhe and Yehdego were responsible for the 4 November detention of the senior commanders.[8]

Extrajudicial executions

In a statement made late in December 2020, Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed stated that extrajudicial executions had occurred during the attacks. He stated that the "TPLF identified and separated hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian soldiers of non-Tigrayan origin, tied their hands and feet together, massacred them in cold blood, and left their bodies lying in open air." Abiy suggested that the TPLF forces had "record[ed] themselves singing and dancing on the bodies of their victims."[9]

References
  1. Binnie, Jeremy (12 November 2020). "Ethiopia says Northern Command is counterattacking Tigray rebels". Jane's. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020. The crisis began with a surprise attack on Northern Command on 4 November 2020 by forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a party that dominated Ethiopia until 2018 and still controls Tigray National Regional State, which has its own police and militia.
  2. "Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: How a soldier survived an 11-hour gun battle". BBC News. 2020-12-10. Archived from the original on 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  3. "The midnight confrontation that helped unleash Ethiopia's conflict". France 24. 2020-11-27. Archived from the original on 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  4. "Inside a military base in Ethiopia's Tigray: soldiers decry betrayal by former comrades". Thomson Reuters. 2020-12-17. Archived from the original on 2020-12-17. Retrieved 2020-12-18.
  5. "Tigray crisis: Ethiopia orders military response after army base seized". BBC News. 4 November 2020. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  6. Anna, Cara (14 November 2020). "Ethiopia's Tigray region bombs airports as conflict spreads". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020. A top TPLF official appeared to confirm the federal government's claim that TPLF forces sparked the conflict by attacking a military base. Sekoutoure Getachew in a video discussion said pre-emptive strikes were carried out in self-defense against the Ethiopian army's Northern Command, calling it an 'internationally known practice'.
  7. Mutambo, Aggrey (2020-12-11). "Ethiopia army says 1,000 captured senior military officers freed". Daily Nation. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
  8. Mutambo, Aggrey (2020-12-13). "Ethiopia issues arrest warrant against top army officers in Tigray". Daily Nation. Archived from the original on 2020-12-13. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  9. Ahmed, Abiy (2020-12-24). "Operations to Restore Law and Order in Ethiopia's Tigray Region: How Did We Get Here?". Ethiopian News Agency. Archived from the original on 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2021-01-20.
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