Ethiopian Air Force MiG-23 shot down?

On 29 November rebellious forces from Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray said they had shot down a military fighter in the Abu Adi area, and retaken a town from federal forces, a day after the Prime Minister announced federal troops had taken over the regional capital and military operations were complete.

The fighter is rumoured to be a MiG-23 of the Ethiopian Air Force, and according the our Order of Battle only 44sq (based at Bahir Dar-Ginbot Haya Bahir Dar International Airport) has MiG-23s on strenght, which are still active.

There was no immediate comment from the government or the military on the claims made by Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in text messages to Reuters.

Claims from all sides are difficult to verify since phone and internet links to Tigray have been down and access tightly controlled since the fighting began on 4 November. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has been trying to quell a rebellion by the TPLF, a powerful ethnically-based party that dominated the central government from 1991 until Abiy came to power in 2018.

It seems like the following two Twitter messages confirm that indeed an Ethiopian MiG-23 has crashed: 

twitter.com/MapEthiopia/status/1333105439681212418 & twitter.com/islamicworldupd/status/1333473029503004672

Picture just illustrative