A spokesman for the Tigrayan forces told AFP they had seized Alamata, the main town in southern Tigray, in a fresh assault two weeks after the federal government declared a unilateral ceasefire in the face of rebel advances.

Getachew Reda said fighting was also taking place in western Tigray, an area where the United States has raised concerns about ethnic cleansing, and where clashes inside a refugee camp on Tuesday sent people fleeing.

The rebel claims could not be independently confirmed as communications were largely down in the area. An Ethiopian military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) last month swept across parts of Tigray and seized its capital Mekele, a turning point in the brutal eight-month conflict with federal troops.

The fighting — marked by massacres and sexual violence — has killed thousands, while the United Nations says hundreds of thousands face famine.

Security forces and officials from neighboring Amhara region had moved in to southern and western Tigray in November to support the Ethiopian army after Tigrayan forces cleared out during the war's early phase.

 

‘In hot pursuit’

"We promised to liberate every square inch of Tigray," Getachew said, announcing the new offensive launched Monday.

The TDF fighters "were able to absolutely rout federal defense forces and Amhara special forces divisions", he said, claiming they had taken most of southern Tigray including Alamata.

Getachew said the TDF was "in hot pursuit" of progovernment forces, adding: "We don't want to give them a chance to regroup."

A UN source reported the sound of artillery near the western Tigray town of Emba Madre and fighting around Mai Tsebri, 13 kilometers away.

Humanitarian sources told AFP fighting also broke out inside the nearby Mai Aini camp housing Eritrean refugees, with Tigrayan rebels exchanging fire with Ethiopian soldiers and their allies in Amharan special forces.

"There was fighting inside the camp," one source said. "Some refugees have started walking from the camps south."

By midday the fighting seemed to have subsided, with Tigrayan forces controlling much of the area, the source said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Two camps for Eritrean refugees located further north, near the border with Eritrea, were destroyed earlier in the war.

A local government office in the Amhara region to the south of Tigray had called Monday for a "mass mobilization" of people with arms and food to Mai Tsebri.

The rebel offensive was launched two days after results showed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won by a landslide in June elections that went ahead despite the conflict.

The TDF had described its seizure of Mekele and most of Tigray as a major victory and initially branded the government's unilateral ceasefire a “joke”.

Rebel leaders later said they accepted the ceasefire "in principle" but posed strict conditions including the withdrawal from the region of Eritrean and Amhara forces.

Abiy and other officials have said federal forces executed a strategic pullback to focus on other threats.

Abiy — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his peace deal with neighboring Eritrea — sent troops into Tigray last November to oust the region's once-dominant ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Abiy accused them of orchestrating attacks on Ethiopian military bases in Tigray, an important economic and industrial region.

The war has badly damaged Abiy's international standing, and Western powers have demanded the ceasefire be accompanied by unfettered aid access.