Residents of Unesco-listed town, 400 miles north of Addis Ababa, say Tigrayan fighters have seized control

Tigray rebels have recaptured the north Ethiopian town of Lalibela, home to a Unesco world heritage site, 11 days after Ethiopian forces said they had retaken control, local residents have said.

It marks another twist in the 13-month-old conflict that has killed thousands of people and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the north of Africa’s second most populous nation.

Footage purporting to show Abiy Ahmed on the battlefront of the country’s year-long war against Tigray forces has been broadcast, four days after he announced he would direct the army from there. Wearing military uniform, Abiy said: 'The enemy doesn't know our capabilities and our preparations … Instead of sitting in Addis, we made a change and decided to come to the front'

• State-affiliated TV purports to show Ethiopian PM on the battlefront

Abiy Ahmed claims in the footage that the war was ‘being conducted with a high level of success’

A state-affiliated Ethiopian TV channel has broadcast footage purporting to show the country’s Nobel peace prize-winning prime minister on the battlefront of the country’s year-long war against Tigray forces, four days after he announced he would direct the army from there.

Wearing military uniform, Abiy Ahmed claimed in the footage that the war was “being conducted with a high level of success” and referred to locations on the border between the country’s Amhara and Afar regions, which neighbour Tigray.

Americans and Britons among those detained as part of sweeping arrests critics say are based on ethnicity

American and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia’s mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country’s escalating war.

Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa’s second most populous country have already been detained amid fears of many more such detentions as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants’ identities with police. Men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them.

Bloc includes Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which has been fighting Abiy Ahmed’s forces for a year

Nine anti-government factions in Ethiopia have said they had formed an alliance amid growing fears that they will attempt to overthrow the government of Abiy Ahmed by marching on the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.

The alliance, the United Front of Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces, includes Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and brings together members of previously rival ethnic groups, including the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).

Addis Ababa at risk after fall of Dessie and Kombolcha as PM urges a fight to the death against rebels

The weekend seizure of two key towns on the main road to Addis Ababa has alarmed Ethiopian leaders who fear that the rapid advances by Tigrayan rebel forces may soon threaten the capital itself.

The sudden push into the towns of Dessie and Kombolcha was accompanied by short bursts of intense fighting that had reportedly subsided by Monday evening. While Dessie was confirmed to have fallen to the rebels on Sunday, the fate of Kombolcha was less clear, with accounts of continuing sporadic gunfire.

TPLF fighters say they have captured Dessie, the furthest south they have reached since July

Tigrayan forces said on Saturday that they had seized the strategic town of Dessie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge from an escalation in the conflict.

Fighters with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had pushed Ethiopian government forces from Dessie and were advancing toward the town of Kombolcha, a TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda, said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.