Eritrea fuels Ethiopia’s bloody civil war in Tigray region in bid to crush its old foe

Eritrea is intensifying its involvement in neighboring Ethiopia’s civil war, including by instituting forced conscription to strengthen its army, in a bid to crush the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party of Ethiopia.
Eritrea’s involvement in Ethiopia’s civil war is seen as effectively hampering efforts to end fighting that destabilized the entire Horn of Africa for almost two years. The conflict has pitted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal troops against forces loyal to the TPLF, which rules the northern Tigray region. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki who backed Abiy from the onset of the hostilities would like to see the TPLF, a long-standing foe, crushed, according to people familiar with the developments. The TPLF accuses Eritrea of staging attacks in Tigray since fighting flared in August, five months after a truce was declared. Last week, the governments of Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States condemned “the escalating involvement of Eritrean military forces in northern Ethiopia”.
Rights activists blame Eritrea for its continued shelling of towns and villages across northern Tigray and thousands of the new conscripts, including women and the elderly, have been deployed to the battle front lines. The stakes couldn’t be higher for Isaias, a rebel commander who led his nation to independence from Ethiopia in the early 1990s and has presided over a one-party state ever since. Besides finally vanquishing the TPLF, a military conquest would help consolidate his power in the region, open up trade with Ethiopia and further cement his already close ties with Abiy. “A peaceful settlement between the TPLF and Abiy is a threat to Isaias,” says a Kenya-based rights activist Asia Abdulkadir. “I don’t think it’s in his interests for this conflict to end. This is pure survival for him.”