US calls for Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels to halt advance

The US on Monday called for Ethiopian rebel forces to halt their offensive towards the capital Addis Adaba.

Speaking at the US Security Council, US ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield said the war waged by “angry belligerent men victimizing women and children has to stop.”

She called on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to withdraw from Amhara and Afar – regions they have occupied since the conflict escalated a year ago.

“We are concerned about our citizens in Ethiopia and our government personnel and we will do everything in our power to secure our facilities,” Thomas Greenfield added.

Ethiopia’s UN envoy Negash Kebret Botora urged media outlets in the West and to the international community to “refrain from giving moral and materialistic support” to the TPLF.

Any attempt to diminish the horrors committed by the group will only be counterproductive, he said.