As a peace deal brokered by the African Union moves forward, Ethiopia’s national airline, Ethiopian Airlines, has said that it will start flying every day to Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray province.
The national airline announced that starting on Wednesday, it will run daily flights and could raise that number based on demand.
After the conflict between Ethiopian federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front broke out in November 2020, the airline stopped operating flights to the area for many weeks.
The airline’s CEO, Mesfin Tasew, said in a statement that the restart of flights will improve family connections and ease travel and business.
According to a CNN investigation from the year before, Ethiopian Airlines was thought to have sent troops and weapons to help fight the Tigrayan rebels.
The airline refuted the claims, claiming that the photographic proof was altered.
Just one day after Ethiopian representatives made their first visit to Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, in almost two years to fulfil a November peace agreement, flights were reported to resume.
Tagesse Chaffo Dullo, the speaker of the Ethiopian parliament, was in charge of the group, which also included a security advisor to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, representatives from state-owned companies, and members of the National Dialogue Commission.
Redwan Hussein, who is in charge of national security, tweeted on Tuesday that Ethio Telecom, which is part of the team, would probably say that services would continue in Tigray.
Hussein also said on Twitter that the TPLF would keep working until Thursday to give Ethiopia’s military control of Mekelle and heavy weapons, as agreed upon at meetings this month in Nairobi.
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A Tigrayan spokesman hailed the delegation’s visit as a significant step toward the peace accord ending the war.
Getachew Reda said in a tweet on Tuesday that it was great that the government allowed services to be restored after a long time.
He said that the fact that none of the delegation members were accompanied by security staff showed that they had faith that Tigray would stick to the peace agreement.
After Ethiopia and the TPLF agreed last week in Nairobi to a joint monitoring team, mediators from Kenya and the African Union are also anticipated to visit Tigray.
Ethiopia has already partially fixed some phone lines and has gradually lifted a ban on food and medical aid to Tigray, which was very important.
Ethiopian federal and Tigrayan authorities signed the peace agreement mediated by the African Union in South Africa on November 2. They promised to stop fighting, disarm rebel groups, get rid of foreign fighters, and get aid and other services that had been cut off.
