Ethiopia- Tigray Conflict:
An Ethiopian government team and Tigray forces are going to have peace talks in South Africa.
- Since 1994, Ethiopia has had a federal system in which different ethnic groups control the affairs of 10 regions. Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) (the party in power in the Tigray region of Ethiopia)- was influential in setting up this system.
- However, the reforms started by Nobel Peace prize winner Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed (he ended a long-standing territorial dispute with neighbouring Eritrea) saw many of the top key Tigrayan government leaders being accused of corruption and being removed.
- Tigray’s leaders saw Mr Abiy’s reforms as an attempt to centralise power and destroy Ethiopia’s federal system and revolted.
- The conflict started, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray.
Ethiopia:
- It is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa, officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
- The country lies completely within the tropical latitudes and is relatively compact, with similar north-south and east-west dimensions.
- The capital is Addis Ababa.
- Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest countries, its territorial extent having varied over the millennia of its existence.
- Ethiopia is located from Sudan in the southeast, Eritrea to the south, Djibouti and Somalia to the west, Kenya to the north, and South Sudan to the east.
- It is the most populous landlocked country in the world.
