PM Abiy Ahmed returns to office from war front

JUBA – The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed has returned to the office after leading the Ethiopian forces from the battlefront in the fight against rebels in the country’s northern part.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner Ahmed resumed his duties on Wednesday after claiming victory in containing a rebel attack in the northern Tigray region.

The Ethiopian government regained control of several towns, such as Dessie and Kombolcha, after several weeks of offensive clashes with the TPLF that has held the towns for almost two months.

The TPLF has admitted the government takeover of those towns, but then said it was making tactical territorial adjustments to re-energize.

“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali momentarily back to the office following successful completion of the first phase of ‘Operation for National Unity in Diversity,” said in a statement issued by Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

The prime minister served in the Ethiopian army during the 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea and obtained the rank of lieutenant colonel.

As a leader, he later ended nearly two decades of tension between the neighboring countries by signing a landmark peace deal in 2019.

Upon assuming office in 2018, Abiy sought to stabilize the country by centralizing power in the federal government, a move that alienated the TPLF, which benefited under the previous devolved system and put it on a collision course with the new administration that has been exacerbated in recent years.

A year of fighting between Ethiopian National Defense Forces and the TPLF and other rebel groups has caused a humanitarian crisis and killed thousands, while displacing more than 2 million people, according to the U.N.