Tigray refugees flee into Sudan after deadly violence on Ethiopia border

The fighting has raised fears that a three-year-old peace deal could unravel, leading to another brutal war.

In northern Ethiopia, hundreds of Tigrayans, including wounded fighters, have been fleeing into Sudan after fighting between the Ethiopian federal army and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebels in Shererina.

The weekend clashes, which involved heavy artillery and drones, were a breach of their three-year-old peace deal, raising the risk of renewed civil war. But by 5pm (14:00 GMT) on Sunday, the fighting, which began early Saturday, had subsided

“There is a de-escalation,” a TPLF member said on Sunday.

The Tigray rebels have said the Ethiopian army launched the attack, accusing it of having “intensified its destructive actions and taken them to a higher level”. The rebels denounced what they described as a “large-scale infantry offensive”.

Federal troops and Tigrayan forces have for several months been massed along the border of northern Tigray in the north of Ethiopia, with both sides accusing each other of wanting to trigger a new conflict.

Fears of a new war have grown less than four years after the end of a bloody conflict between the two sides, the TPLF backed by local militias and the Eritrean army, which left at least 600,000 dead, according to an African Union estimate.

“The security tensions occurring at the border between Sudan and Ethiopia take place against the backdrop of the fighting between the Ethiopian army and the Tigray fighters in this area,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Sayed Ahmad, reporting from Ad-Damazin, the capital of Blue Nile, Sudan.

He said drone or artillery fire had caused explosions in several large refugee camps at the border, but casualty numbers were not available. The UNHCR has expressed concern about the border tensions.

Residents on the Sudanese side of the border also reported hearing explosions and sustained gunfire throughout the fighting.