TPLF’s Ex-UN Peacekeepers from Sudan close to hotly contested Humera town in Ethiopia

Hundreds former UN peacekeepers in Sudan associated with the TPLF in Northern Ethiopia have joined the recent battle for a strategic town of Humera, according to a report by Blomberg, in the latest flareup of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray regional conflict.

The fighting has pitted Ethiopian forces against fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an armed insurgency dedicated to the overthrow of the elected government of Ethiopia. While a one-sided humanitarian truce kept the lid on recent fighting, fresh attacks by TPLF has forced the hand of Ethiopia’s armed forces, raising fears of a return to all-out war.

The strategic town of Humera, which lies at the intersection between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan is highly valued by TPLF rebel forces who have dedicated significant resources to capture. Success in Humera would enable the TPLF to open up weapons-supply corridors to bolster its insurgency, and potentially allow it to launch an attack on Eritrea, a long-standing foe of the Tigray’s regional leadership.

Following the surprise attack on Ethiopia’s northern command by the TPLF in November 2020, many TPLF members of the Ethiopian UN peacekeepers mission stationed in Abyei, refused to return to Ethiopia, fearing prosecution for their associations with the insurrection. The Ethiopian government has accused many of them of aiding TPLF’s insurrection. After abandoning their mission in Abyei, a border region contested by North Sudan and South Sudan, the Ex UN peacekeepers found refuge in Sudan, where they have since joined up with other TPLF insurgents.

According to Bloomberg, “the ex-peacekeepers, including hundreds of officer-level soldiers who were part of the Ethiopian army before joining the UN force, initially conducted operations on behalf of TPLF inside Sudan and have recently moved close to Humera in northwest Ethiopia”.

Since the coming to power of the Abiy government, Eritrea has been key ally of Ethiopia in the fight against TPLF, which is viewed as a national security threat by both Asmara and Addis Ababa. However, Sudan’s leaders in Khartoum have struck a different tone. They have largely been at odds with Ethiopia over the construction of a massive hydropower dam on the Nile River that originates in Ethiopia and traverses Sudan before ending up in Egypt. Many in Ethiopia believe recent Sudanese goading is proxy for downstream Egypt, which seeks to arm twist Ethiopia into a more favorable long term water sharing agreement on the Nile. The Ethiopians sincerely believe Cairo is sponsoring insurgents including the TPLF.

According to Getachew Reda, a member of the TPLF’s executive committee, the former UN peacekeepers had been stationed near refugee camps in eastern Sudan’s Al Qadarif region, preparing to enter the fight against the Ethiopian government and on behalf of the TPLF led region of Tigray.

However, according to Bloomberg, Brigadier Nabil Abdullah, spokesperson of the Sudanese Armed Forces, denied the presence of any Tigray rebel units or ex-UN peacekeeper in his country. A spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency and the peacekeepers in Sudan didn’t reply to questions. Ethiopia has accused Sudan of aiding and abetting TPLF insurgents disguised as refugees in UNHCR camps. The role of the UN in all of this is not clearly known. The general consensus among Ethiopian officials is that UN refugee camps in eastern Sudan have become incubation centers for TPLF fighters disguised as civilian evacuees.

The Ex-UN peacekeepers contingent has been joined by several Tigray fighters who fled during the war recently and some residents. According to Bloomberg, access to the region has been restricted and most communications have been cut off, making it difficult to verify what the unit has been doing or how effective it has been. 

Many TPLF members have been detained in prisons across Ethiopia since the civil war erupted in 2020. Prior to reforms undertaken by the Abiy Ahmed Administration, Ethiopia’s military had been unfairly structured whereby most senior positions were reserved for TPLF adherents. It is therefore not surprising to have the Ethiopian contingent of the UN peacekeepers mission in Sudan also be overwhelmingly from the Tigray region. Only a handful returned to Ethiopia after the conflict.

Sudan continues to play a destabilizing role in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray conflict. Many Tigray rebel fighters are being stationed, armed, and trained in eastern Sudan. TPLF plans to use these units to one day wrester control of the hotly contested Humera-welkait-Tsegede, strategic areas currently administered by Ethiopia’s Amhara regional government. Making things even more intractable is contending ethnic based claims to the region by both Amhara and Tigray leaders.

On August 26, 2022, Ethiopia’s air force chief said it shot down an arms-laden cargo plane while in route to the Tigray region. The Antonov 26 type cargo plane originated in Sudan, although the Sudanese have denied it. A few days prior, Ethiopia’s prime minster mentioned ‘they had “detailed intelligence of several nightly flights intended to arm the TPLF militants”. This latest assault by TPLF fighters stationed in Sudan is further indication of Sudan’s continued involvement in Ethiopia’s internal conflict perhaps on behalf of other bigger regional players.  

Ethiopia has thus far avoided direct entanglement with Sudan on the issue, choosing instead, to embark on a domestic law and order approach where quelling unrest at home is seen as more important, but given consistent flares up in the northwest and west, there will be political pressure at home to deal with destabilizing forces emanating from Sudan. This could potentially threaten to widen the scope of Ethiopia’s conflict. So far, the international community has failed to unequivocally condemn armed actors testing Ethiopia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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A Snapshot of Tigray Under TPLF Rule Over Spring and Summer, According to Confidential UN Documents

Leaked reports marked Confidential from the UN’s Department of Safety and Security offer a picture of the TPLF’s lawless and despotic rule in Tigray over the spring and summer.

For instance, according to the UN’s own documents, the TPLF rounded up several Tigrayans on April 17 ‘who [were] not willing to send their children to join TF [Tigray Forces]. The authorities also [conducted] a house-to-house search after 18:00 hours escorted by TF members. It was also reported that TF members who deserted from TF without permission were forced for recruitment.”

And only the day before, April 16, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, “a UN staff member was arrested…in Mekelle city. The staff member was reportedly released on 17 April.” Which means that UN worker was clearly imprisoned for at least a whole evening.

What’s interesting is that while these events were going on in April, Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald of the Balsillie School of International Affairs of Canada was busy interviewing scores of Tigrayans at two IDP camps in Amhara and Afar region who told horror stories of forced recruitment, child soldiers, brutal detentions and attempts to create fake atrocity videos. Fitz-Gerald was vilified online by TPLF apologists, and Tom Gardner, The Economist’s correspondent at the time, wrote an intimidating letter to a Balsillie official, claiming her work was “far below acceptable academic standards.”

When he was exposed, Ethiopian authorities kicked Gardner out, and he then claimed he was the target of a campaign of online harassment. Well, since I’m the one who outed his antics by writing an open letter to The Economist, I don’t think I qualify as a “campaign.”

As for Fitz-Gerald’s findings, they were later confirmed by a Reuters report which didn’t even bother to acknowledge her work and relied on a far fewer number of Tigrayan interview subjects.

Now, once again, the UN is confirming what the professor told us at the end of April.

And as you may recall, leaked documents last year proved that the UN ignored and covered up incidents in which their own Ethiopian staff were kidnapped and assaulted, as well as instances where they knew the TPLF was using forced recruitment, along with cases of looting.

According to these new leaked documents, on April 24, a UN staff member was attacked and robbed by three men near the Gebar Shire hotel in Shire. One suspect “hung the staff member’s neck from behind [sic] and the other two suspects took some amount of ETB and important documents. Police have reportedly arrested two suspects, and they were under police investigation. No further details known.”

Well, why not? The report poses more questions than it answers. What were these important documents? Were they retrieved? And again, why is the UN not going public when a member of staff is violently attacked in the street and vital papers are stolen?

The Department of Safety and Security also knows that at about 2 in the morning on July 17, the house of a UN staff member in Shire town was burglarized. While the “staff member and his family members were unharmed in the incident,” several items were taken, including his “official laptop.”

Yes, crime happens in cities around the world, but such attacks can be interpreted as another sign of social breakdown in a region where terrorists are in charge — those who set the tone by forcing Tigrayans to give up family members to fight and keeping food reserves for the elite.

The WFP’s David Beasley earned a lot of attention this week by venting his rage at the TPLF fuel heist, and it’s been condemned by not only the UN but the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs and the head of USAID Samantha Power. Now Ethiopians hold their breath and wait to see if the U.S. and its EU/UN partners will finally, finally part company with a terrorist group.

But why, we might all ask, didn’t the UN go public earlier with the crimes their staff witnessed?

Why does it take leaked documents to prove how much the UN knows about what the TPLF are doing to Tigrayans in the region?

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