Talks between the Ethiopian government and rebel authorities in Tigray to seek a peaceful solution to their devastating two-year conflict would resume on Monday, a diplomat said.
African Union-led negotiations began last Tuesday in South Africa, the first formal dialogue to try to end a war that has killed many thousands and sparked a desperate humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.
South Africa originally said talks in Pretoria would last until Sunday, but they remain classified.
Ebba Kalondo, spokeswoman for AU Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat, said in a message to AFP that “there was no time limit on the talks”.
A diplomat with knowledge of the talks confirmed to AFP that talks would resume on Monday without giving further details, adding: “They are very strict about confidentiality.”
A source close to the Tigrayan delegation in South Africa told AFP over the weekend that talks are expected to last until Tuesday.
Intense fighting has continued unabated in Tigray since negotiations began, where government forces backed by the Eritrean Army and regional forces are conducting artillery and airstrikes and capturing a number of towns from the rebels.
Diplomatic efforts to bring the government and the rebels to the negotiating table gained momentum after fighting resumed in late August, torpedoing a five-month truce that had allowed limited aid to Tigray.
The international community has expressed deep concern at the ongoing fighting and the human cost it is inflicting on civilians caught in the crossfire.
It calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities, humanitarian access to Tigray, where many are starving, and a withdrawal of Eritrean forces whose return to the battlefield has raised fears of renewed atrocities against civilians.
– Humanitarian aid “limited” –
The conflict erupted on November 4, 2020, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed dispatched troops to Tigray after accusing the region’s ruling People’s Liberation Front of Tigray (TPLF) of attacking federal army camps.
Since then, fighting in Africa’s second most populous country has displaced well over two million people from their homes and killed up to half a million, according to US estimates.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said in a report released over the weekend that around 574,000 people had been displaced in Tigray alone and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara since fighting resumed in late August.
“Uncertainty and restrictions on aid shipments continue to constrain humanitarian aid in the three regions,” it said.
Tigray remains largely closed to the outside world, with no communications and shortages of food, fuel and medicines, while access to northern Ethiopia is restricted for journalists.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Friday that malaria cases in Tigray had increased by 80 percent compared to last year.
And according to the United Nations World Food Program, the rate of global acute malnutrition among children under five in Tigray is 29 percent.
Last week Amnesty International said that every party involved in the war had committed crimes against humanity.
“Documented human rights violations…(including) rape, sexual violence…looting, torture and extrajudicial killings,” said Fisseha Tekle, an Amnesty expert for Ethiopia and Eritrea, at a news conference in Nairobi.
