Ethiopian police find 50,000 ammunition rounds sent to rebels by Eritrea

Ethiopian police have seized more than 50,000 rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to arm rebels in the country amid increasingly tense relations between the two Horn of Africa nations.

In October, Ethiopia accused its neighbour of attempting to destabilise the country by financing armed groups, particularly in the Amhara region. Eritrea said the claims were a "sham."

Ethiopian police said in a Facebook statement on Wednesday that they had seized "more than 56,000 rounds of ammunition" in Amhara, intended to "arm the Fano" - a militant group which took up arms against the federal government in 2023. The ammunition, transported in a lorry, was sent by Eritrea and transited through the northern region of Tigray with the assistance of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), police said. The TPLF once ran the whole of Ethiopia until it was displaced by the current administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he rose to power in 2018, later fighting a devastating civil war from 2020 to 2022.

TPLF Vice President Amanuel Assefa denounced the "unfounded allegations" to AFP and said federal authorities "are looking for a pretext to undermine the Pretoria Agreement" which ended the war.

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel told AFP that Ethiopia "was floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years." Eritrea, one of the world's most closed countries, gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. They fought a border war from 1998 to 2000. Abiy initially sought rapprochement with Eritrea when he came to power, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. The two governments cooperated against the Tigrayans during the 2020-2022 war, but fell out over the peace accord, from which Eritrea was excluded.

Relations have again plummeted in recent months. In an interview with state television on Monday, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said Ethiopia's ruling party had "declared war".