Ethiopia says about 300 Tigray rebel fighters have surrendered

Some 300 members of Ethiopia's Tigray rebel forces have surrendered to authorities, the federal army said Friday, as fears mount of a return to the conflict that devastated the region between 2020 and 2022.

Both the government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) have massed troops along the border of the northern state in recent months, fuelling fears of a return to the war that killed some 600,000 people, according to the African Union.

Federal authorities carried out several drone strikes in the region in August and September, targeting military positions, according to ACLED, an NGO that tracks conflicts. Officials have not commented on the strikes.

"Nearly 300 TPLF fighters surrendered to forces stationed along the Tekeze corridor," the federal army said on Facebook, named after the river in northwestern and western Tigray.

TPLF vice president Amanuel Assefa told AFP he could not "comment on this kind of military issue".

The fighters who surrendered included divisional officers who "handed over more than 280 individual and crew-served weapons, various types of ammunition", the army said, publishing photos of the weapons and soldiers.

According to the military, the men were "unhappy" with the "TPLF's preparations for war".

"They also said they opposed what they described as efforts by TPLF leaders to recruit young Tigrayans and send them to war to protect themselves from accountability," the statement said.

AFP and human rights NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) have reported a campaign of forced recruitment by the regional Tigrayan authorities, quoting young men who escaped training camps where they were taken against their will, or fled their local area to avoid roundups.

The federal forces also claimed the men said they opposed the alliance between neighbouring Eritrea and the TPLF, and described it as "harmful".

For months, the government has accused the TPLF of closer ties to neighbouring Eritrea, which gained independence in 1993 and has long had tense relations with Addis Ababa.

Amanuel has previously said he would ally with "anyone who fights the federal government".

The TPLF, which Addis Ababa considers illegitimate, took power in 1991 and ran the government until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's appointment in 2018.

Tigray, which had around six million inhabitants before the war, is economically drained, with several hundred thousand people still displaced.