Tigray's Deputy Gov. Surrenders to Ethiopian Authorities

The Ethiopian authorities said today, Tuesday, that the deputy governor of Tigray province has surrendered to government forces.

The spokesman for the Ethiopian Emergency Committee, Radwan Hussein, said that the former deputy governor of the Tigray region, Ambassador Adisu Palima, had surrendered to government forces.

Palima is a member of the executive committee of the Tigray Liberation Front, which the central government considers a rebel faction.

He is the second official of the Front to surrender to the authorities.

Earlier this month, the Ethiopian authorities announced the handing over of a member of the Executive Committee of Khayriah Ibrahim, an official of  Tigray Liberation Front to the Ethiopian authorities in the city of Mekele, the regional capital of Tigray.

About a month after the outbreak of fighting in the Tigray region early last month, forces of the Ethiopian government took control of the provincial capital and asked the rebel leaders to surrender themselves.

The federal authorities pledged to bring the heads of the rebels to justice.

The central government accuses the rebels of being responsible for igniting tribal and sectarian strife in the country, and planning to assassinate Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in addition to a bloody attack on an army camp in the region.

Yesterday, Monday, the Ethiopian government described the ability of the Tigray Liberation Front in the long-standing insurgency as "limited."

A statement issued by the office of the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, said, on Monday, that the Ethiopian Defense Forces were able to defeat the forces and militias of the Tigray Liberation Front, without causing civilian casualties and damage to property.

After the defeat of the Tigray Liberation Front by the Ethiopian army a great defeat, the ability of the Tigrayan front to sustain a long-term rebellion will be impossible and limited.

The battles in the Tigray region caused a mass exodus of thousands of people from the war zones to the borders with Sudan and Eritrea.