With our correspondent in Addis Ababa, Noé Hoché-Bodin

Following the incident this past weekend, Deputy Foreign Minister Redwan Hussein repeats that in Tigray, it is the government that decides and the UN that executes. "When we signed the humanitarian agreement, we thought the United Nations would collaborate, says Redwan Hussein. And that it would be us, the government, who would make the decisions. We do not authorize partners to go it alone or decide alone. Free access does not exist here."

Fighting Still Continues in Tigray

He acknowledges at the same time that fighting continues, despite the announcement of final victory by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ten days ago: "We clearly say that indeed there are Tigrayan special forces and militias that have not laid down their arms. They went to hide in the bush and they are still capable of fighting."

Requests continue to flood in to open Tigray to observers in order to investigate possible war crimes. The answer is no according to the authorities. "We will accept independent investigations if and only if we think we are not up to the task. Ethiopia does not need a babysitter. The first entity to whom we must account is the Ethiopian people. Here, this is not a colony, neither in the past nor today."

According to Redwan Hussein, the end of operations and the arrest of TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) leaders could still take weeks.