After President Joe Biden’s US State Department gave green light for TPLF invasion of Amhara, North Gondar administration sent decree on Monday demanding all able-bodied citizens to join a local army and defend the zone’s Welkait region. Witnesses say there is mass mobilization of men with the local Gondar government enlisting people for military service.

Historically, the Welkait region had autonomy while at times remained part of Gondar, also nicknamed Begemder. However in 1991, It was illegally and by force renamed “Western Tigray” by the TPLF ruling party, after the TPLF rulers ethnic-cleansed the local Amharic speaking Welkait people and resettled tens of thousands of Tigrayans to alter the demography. The Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) controlled the Welkait area by force for nearly three decades with the support of the US government, until its military fled in November 2020, when the Amhara Regional State took-over and restored Welkait to Gondar.

However, after the Ethiopian federal government called for humanitarian ceasefire and withdrew from Mekelle at the end of June, several leaders of TPLF proclaimed to continue the war Westward and South toward Amhara region as well as Afar region.

On Sunday, TPLF militias were already visible advancing south to the contested Raya region, in what witnesses labeled was a “human wave” of Tigrayan fighters, which included child soldiers. Some of the main TPLF forces facing the Amhara militia in Raya were said to carry heavy weaponry, previously abandoned by the federal army. Dejene Asefa, a local Raya activist said on Monday that TPLF forces used “heavy artillery” which killed six civilians and damaged Trinity church while “hundreds” of Raya were massacred by Tigrayans in nearby villages in a gruesome attack.

Historically, Raya people are a largely Amharic dominant multilingual community residing under the Wollo province pre-1991 and they have a fusion of Oromo, Amhara and Tigrayan cultures going back centuries. However, the TPLF rulers forcefully redrew boundaries in 1990s to put the Rayans under Tigray jurisdiction with the support of the US government. Under the controversial apartheid-like “ethnic-federalism” system introduced by TPLF in 1990s, multiethnic communities nationwide like Raya have been forcefully segregated and reallocated, in order to fall under the jurisdiction of single- ethnic enclaves. 

In opposition to TPLF’s policies since the 1990s, the Amharas rejected what they considered “Greater Tigray” and demanded that Welkait returns to Gondar zone and Raya returns to Wollo zone; or else offered a compromise solution where such disputed regions become self-governing autonomous administrations without affiliation to any ethnic label. These proposals were rejected by the TPLF ruling party that dominated Ethiopia for three decades and continued to cleanse those regions with Western support until 2020.

On Monday, the Joe Biden US administration reaffirmed its support for TPLF rebels, as State Department Spokesman Ned Price reiterated that US opposes the recent “change of internal boundaries” in which Amharas restored Welkait to its pre-1991 historic location in Gondar.

Emboldened by Western support, the TPLF has also rejected the federal government’s humanitarian ceasefire, with new reports that TPLF has began using WFP food aid to recruit fighters, including women and children.

The imminent war for Welkait is expected to be one of the most gruesome battles of the conflict, as TPLF has reportedly gained assistance from Khartoum and Egypt to train additional 30,000 fighters recruited out of refugee camps in Sudan, according to the Financial Times (FT).