The Security Council fails to agree on Ethiopia and a UN appeal to the parties to the conflict to stop the fighting

Security Council members fail to agree to adopt a statement calling for a ceasefire in Tigray, Ethiopia. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, appeals to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the leader of the Tigray People's Liberation Front to end the fighting and start comprehensive negotiations to resolve the crisis.

The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council this week failed to agree to adopt a statement calling for a ceasefire in Tigray, Ethiopia and expressing concern about alleged arrests based on ethnic identity, diplomatic sources said Friday.

A diplomat told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the draft text submitted by Ireland, a non-permanent member of the council, had been rejected by China and Russia and had been "abandoned".

Several other diplomatic sources confirmed that "there is no agreement", and some of them believed that the draft was rushed.

The Russian diplomatic mission acknowledged that there was a disagreement over the text, while it was not possible to obtain immediate comment from the Chinese mission.

In the draft text, the Security Council calls for "unimpeded humanitarian access", "an end to hostilities" and the launch of a "comprehensive national dialogue" in Ethiopia, according to Agence France-Presse.

The draft also expresses the council's "deep" concern about the arrest of United Nations employees (a number of whom were still detained Friday) and calls for their "immediate release."

The draft also stresses the council members' concerns about "reports of large-scale arrests in Ethiopia on the basis of ethnic identity and without due process."

The draft also denounces "hate speech".

For his part, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, appealed to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and the leader of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Depression Gebremichel, to end the fighting and start comprehensive negotiations to resolve the crisis.

This came during a phone call made by the Secretary-General with them on Friday, according to a statement issued by Stefan, spokesman for Guterres.

The statement stated that "the Secretary-General spoke separately by phone with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the leader of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Jebermy Shell."

The statement pointed out that the call came in coordination with the African Union mediator, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and current Kenyan Uhuru Kenyatta.

The statement added: "The Secretary-General appealed to the two parties to put an end to the fighting and start comprehensive negotiations to resolve the ongoing crisis."

On November 4, 2020, violent clashes erupted between the Ethiopian army and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, after government forces entered the region in response to an attack on an army base.

On the 28th of the same month, Ethiopia announced the end of the "law enforcement" operation by controlling the entire region, despite reports of continuing human rights violations in the region, where thousands of civilians were killed.

According to observers, the conflict caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands, and the flight of more than 60,000 people to Sudan, while Khartoum says that their numbers reached 71,488 people in 2021.

Last week, the Ethiopian authorities declared a state of emergency in all parts of the country for six months, with growing fears of the advance of the "Tigai People's Liberation Front" fighters and their allies towards the capital, Addis Ababa, amid calls for their nationals to leave the country at a time when the conflict between the rebels and government forces in the north of the country is escalating.