In Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed has won the battle but not the war

THE BATTLE, in the end, was mercifully short. The 500,000 inhabitants of Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, were spared a large-scale bloodbath. On November 28th Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, declared victory over Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). A military operation that had started a few weeks earlier was complete, he said. Shelling of the city began at about ten that morning. By the evening Tigray’s president, Debretsion Gebremichael, and other leaders had vanished into the mountains. Crowds in the national capital, Addis Ababa, broke into celebration.