ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) --
Authorities in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Tuesday urged residents to prepare to defend their neighborhoods after forces from Tigray region, who have been fighting the central government for a year, indicated they could advance on the city.
People should register their weapons and gather in their neighborhoods, the city administration said in a statement carried by the Ethiopian News Agency.
House-to-house searches were being conducted and troublemakers arrested, the statement said.
The appeal came after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed to have captured several towns in recent days and said it was considering marching on Addis Ababa, about 380 km (235 miles) to the south of their forward positions.
People moved around the capital as normal on Tuesday, with one woman saying she had not heard of the latest directive.
“I will try to buy food commodities in advance. But so far I haven’t yet purchased anything,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.
Another resident, a Tigrayan, said he was frightened because of a rise in ethnic slurs and incitement to violence against Tigrayans on social media.
“They may come up with stories that could create violence against Tigrayans,” he said. There have previously been several police round-ups of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa. Authorities denied it was due to their ethnicity.
The governments of four of the country’s 10 regions also called upon Ethiopians to mobilize to fight against the Tigrayan forces, state-affiliated Fana TV said.
The conflict started over the night of Nov. 3, 2020, when forces loyal to the TPLF - including some soldiers - seized military bases in Tigray, a northern region. In response, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent more troops there.
The TPLF had dominated national politics for nearly three decades but lost much influence when Abiy took office in 2018 following years of anti-government protests.
Relations with the TPLF soured after they accused him of centralizing power at the expense of Ethiopia’s regional states - an accusation Abiy denies.
The TPLF has claimed the capture of Dessie, Kombolcha and Burka, all in the Amhara region, in recent days.
The conflict in what was once considered a stable Western ally in a volatile region has plunged around 400,000 people in Tigray into famine, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2.5 million people in the north to flee their homes.