The conflict in Ethiopia has sent nearly 50,000 refugees fleeing to Sudan.
Camera IconThe conflict in Ethiopia has sent nearly 50,000 refugees fleeing to Sudan.

Ethiopian govt scorns guerilla war fears

AAP

Ethiopia's government denies that northern forces whom its troops have fought for a month will be able to mount a guerilla insurgency, while diplomats say a United Nations team was shot at while trying to visit a refugee camp.

Federal troops have seized the regional capital Mekelle from the former local ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and declared an end to their month-long offensive.

But TPLF leaders say they are fighting back on various fronts around Mekelle. Ethiopia experts fear a drawn-out insurgency with a destabilising impact on East Africa.

"The criminal clique pushed a patently false narrative that its fighters and supporters are battle-hardened and well armed, posing the risk of protracted insurgency in the rugged mountains of Tigray," Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Monday.

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"It also claimed that it has managed to undertake strategic retreat with all its capability and regional government apparatus intact. The reality is the criminal clique is thoroughly defeated and in disarray, with insignificant capability to mount a protracted insurgency."

There was no immediate TPLF response.

With communications largely down and access for humanitarian workers and media restricted, Reuters has not been able to verify claims from all sides on the state of fighting.

A UN security team seeking to access Shimelba refugee camp, one of four for Eritrean refugees in Tigray, was blocked and fired at on Sunday, two diplomatic sources said.

The sources declined to give more details, saying the full circumstances were unclear.

The conflict, which came after Abiy had pushed back against the TPLF's past dominance of federal government and accused them of abuses, is thought to have killed thousands of people.

It has also sent nearly 50,000 refugees fleeing to Sudan, seen TPLF rockets fired into Eritrea, stirred ethnic divisions, and led to the disarming of Tigrayans in Ethiopia's peacekeeping contingency combating al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

The United Nations and aid agencies are pressing for safe access to Tigray, which is home to more than five million people and where 600,000 relied on food aid even before the war.

The government says that with peace restored, its priorities are the welfare of Tigrayans and return of refugees. But some residents, diplomats and the TPLF say clashes persist, with protests and looting also reported in Mekelle on Friday.