After more than a year of brutal conflict, Tigrayan forces pledged to withdraw from neighbouring regions in the north of the country in a sudden step towards a possible ceasefire.
In a letter dated Sunday, Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the Tigray People's Liberation Front TPLF, told the United Nations that the Tigray Defence Forces TDF outside Tigray have been ordered to return to the region in a decisive opening for peace.
Gebremichael said that the TDF were withdrawing from the Amhara and Afar regions, and that they propose an immediate cessation of hostilities followed by negotiations. He demanded an immediate no-fly zone for hostile aircraft over Tigray and an arms embargo on Ethiopia and its recent ally Eritrea, whose forces have been engaged in the war that started last November.
After mounting tensions between the government and the TPLF, Abiy Ahmed launched a military offensive against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which had previously ruled Ethiopia for 28 years. The war has killed thousands of people and sparked a humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia, with 400,000 facing famine-like conditions in Tigray and 9.4 million in need of food aid in the region.
Debretsion said that he hoped that the TDF withdrawal would force the international community to ensure that food aid could enter Tigray.
The United Nations accused the Ethiopian government of effectively operating a blockade halting urgent humanitarian assistance, which Ethiopian authorities have denied repeatedly.
The ceasefire offer has yet to be responded to by Ethiopia's government, but calls for a cessation of fighting have been ignored by both the government and the TPLF, with disputes over the conditions for an end to the conflict.
Ethiopian authorities called for a ceasefire in June, as Tigrayan forces rebounded and made significant gains, including invading Amhara and Afar. The ceasefire proposal by the TPLF comes amid continuing conflict and increasing pressure from government and government-aligned forces since November when Ahmed declared he was joining the conflict on the ground.
The international community will do something about the situation in Tigray by us withdrawing, as they can no longer use it as an excuse to attack Amhara and Afar, a TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters.
Other measures urged by the letter were the release of political prisoners and thousands of Tigrayans who have been detained by the government and international investigators to look into potential war crimes.
Atrocities alleged against all sides of the conflict have only gradually emerged this year, due to a communications blackout in Tigray by Ethiopia s government and widely condemned restrictions on aid agencies, rights groups and observers.
A joint report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch last week was released, based on accounts from survivors and witnesses, detailed house-to- house raids and detentions of ethnic Tigrayans, and how thousands were held in prisons and makeshift detention centres. Witnesses said many of them were being tortured and killed in attacks by Ethiopian-aligned forces.