The Tigray region’s communication affairs bureau has rebuffed suggestions that the region has security forces that are operating along with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)-Shene group in an armed struggle against the federal government in western Ethiopia.

In a statement yesterday, the region’s communication bureau said that a political party that operates within the legal framework and peaceful manner cannot have an army and charged the statements were part of baseless media propaganda.

The Oromia region last week said fighters of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) are operating along with the OLF-Shene group in restive Wellega province and western part of Ethiopia. Girma Gelan, the Oromia police deputy commissioner, said the region has the intelligence that many TPLF fighters are operating along with the OLF-Shene group. “Numerous youth who have escaped from stations make no secret of who trained them and assigned them, he said. “If the idea is librating Oromo, why now forge an alliance with a group used to call us parasites? This is what the Oromo people need to ask,” he said.

Image: Girma Gelan, Oromia police deputy commissioner, courtesy of BBC