Seven Ethiopian armed groups announce anti-government alliance

Seven Ethiopian armed groups, including longstanding enemies who fought on opposite sides of a 2020-2022 civil war, said they have formed an alliance aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government.

The announcement of the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival brought together am ethnically diverse body of groups based across the country, from Tigray in the north to Somali Region in the south. Some remain at loggerheads with other members over territory and other issues.

Abiy's spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, said members of the alliance had been collaborating for a while with the financial backing of Ethiopia's neighbour and historic adversary Eritrea.

"The recent announcement is only attesting (to) what the Ethiopian government has been alleging time and again," she wrote in a text message on Monday.

Eritrea's information minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Asmara has repeatedly denied similar accusations.

The new alliance, announced late on Sunday, includes the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Amhara Fano National Movement.

Fano, a coalition of armed groups from the Amhara region, fought in support of the federal government against the TPLF during the 2020-2022 Tigray war, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and was marked by ethnically driven atrocities.

Fano subsequently rose up against the federal government in a conflict that has killed thousands in Amhara since 2023.

Many of the groups have accused the government of centralising power and marginalising the regions. The government says it has launched a national dialogue meant to address longstanding political divisions and internal conflicts.

"We, the peoples' forces concerned with the survival of Ethiopia's peoples, bear the historic responsibility of overthrowing this regime," said the statement read out by Fano leader Zemene Kassie and broadcast on the TPLF-controlled Tigrai TV. The statement was also published on several of the groups' social media feeds.

On Monday, the country's media regulator said in a statement that it was strictly prohibited for news outlets to use Tigrai TV as a source of information.

The Ethiopian Media Authority's director general did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.