A regional force that supported the Ethiopian federal government against the Tigray rebels has withdrawn from a strategic town in this northern region of Ethiopia, in accordance with the peace agreement, the Ethiopian army said on Thursday.
"Today, the Amhara special force, which had undertaken a national mission with the army, left the Shire region in accordance with the peace agreement"
signed in November between Addis Ababa and the rebellion, the army said. Ethiopian in a statement posted on Facebook.
This withdrawal comes, the army said, after the Tigrayan rebels began to surrender their heavy weapons, a key point in the peace agreement aimed at ending this deadly conflict.
This agreement in fact provides that foreign forces and those not forming part of the army withdraw from Tigray
“simultaneously”
with the disarmament of the rebel forces.
Residents and aid workers reported the presence of Amhara forces and Eritrean troops in Shire as in other parts of Tigray, accusing them of murder, rape and looting.
Read alsoCessation of hostilities in Tigray: “what awaits us” is much “greater than the path taken”, according to the rebellion
A withdrawal of the Eritrean military, which played an important role in the war by supporting Ethiopian forces, has long been a demand of the Tigray rebels and Western countries.
But the peace agreement signed in Pretoria does not specifically mention the Eritrean army.
Ethiopian government and Tigrayan rebels signed an agreement on November 2 ending a war that ravaged northern Ethiopia for two years, causing more than two million people to be displaced and plunging the region into a deep humanitarian crisis.
The death toll from the war is unknown.