In Ethiopia’s civil war, Tigrayan forces take the offensive

THE STREETS of Dessie, in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, are loud and bustling. So are its restaurants and bars. But as Ethiopia’s civil war edges closer, the mood is darkening. In the past week military-training camps have sprung up. Outside a hospital a tent has been erected; wounded soldiers lie on stretchers. Through mountain fog come the screams of ambulance sirens. Such is the tension gripping the place that when your correspondent visited, he was arrested almost immediately and held for several hours.The jitters are because rebels from Tigray are advancing fast and meeting weak resistance. As went to press, the fighting was drawing near to Weldiya, a strategically important town about 80km north of Dessie. To the west they have penetrated to within perhaps 80km of Gondar, Ethiopia’s historic capital (see map).