Addis Ababa: Tigrayan rebel forces in northern Ethiopia have seized control of the airport in the regional capital, security and local sources told AFP on Wednesday, at a time of rising tensions with the federal government.
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region, fought a devastating civil war with the federal government in 2020-2022 that killed some 600,000 people, according to African Union estimates.
Sporadic clashes in recent months have raised fears of a return to war.
"While we were on our way to the airport for work, our supervisor called the driver and told him that the airport had been taken over by Tigray forces. Since there were no flights, he told us to return home," an employee at Alula Aba Nega Airport in the Tigrayan capital Mekelle told AFP.
The information was confirmed by a foreign security source based in Ethiopia.
A small number of federal police guard the airport, and their condition was unknown.
Flight Radar, an air traffic tracker, showed that Wednesday morning's flight between Mekelle and the federal capital, Addis Ababa, had been cancelled.
On Sunday, the TPLF was announced as a member of a new alliance of anti-government armed groups from across the country.
Ethiopia faces a myriad of insurgencies, including in its most populous regions, Oromia and Amhara.
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