Civilians dust off Kalashnikovs and antique swords as rebels advance on Ethiopian capital.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Sunday as rebel forces advancing on Addis Ababa confirmed they intended to enter the city and overthrow him.

The demonstration came after Mr Abiy warned Ethiopians they must be ready to make “sacrifices” to “salvage” the country, which has been locked in a brutal civil war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) for the last year.

To expect victory from “our army and its battle alone is foolishness”, Abiy Ahmed said. “Unless we cooperate to defend against the threats posed cooperatively by our enemies, victory is unthinkable.”

The TPLF seized two strategic cities on the road to the capital last week. They unveiled an alliance with other factions on Friday aiming to remove the prime minister from power by force if necessary.

The rebels confirmed on Saturday that taking the city itself was not “an objective” but insisted they would not meet popular resistance if they did so to overthrow the prime minister.

“The story that the population in Addis is vehemently opposed to us is absolutely overstated,” Getachew Reda, a TPLF spokesman, told AFP.

Addis is a melting pot. People with all kinds of interests live in Addis. The claim that Addis will turn into a bloodbath if we enter Addis is absolutely ridiculous.”

Residents of the city have been dusting off old Kalashnikov rifles and antique swords since Mr Ahmed issued his desperate call to arms on Saturday.

All citizens have been ordered to register any type of arms they own at nearby police stations and  told to unite and “help the security” of their area.

One local told the Telegraph that he had taken a Kalashnikov inherited from his father to police amid fears Addis Ababa – home to five million people – could fall in a matter of weeks.

“I am told if I am not going to make use of it, I have to hand it over to the district so they can make use of it,” he said.

So far “bombs and heavy weapons” have been handed in, alongside “antique swords and machetes”, a police spokesperson said.

“Everyone should stand to safeguard their neighbourhoods. We should be the police of our own neighbourhood; we should be its keepers, and its defence forces,” Addis Ababa’s mayor, Adanech Abiebie, said.

In Addis Ababa the Telegraph witnessed groups of young men being picked up and loaded onto trucks one day last week. Later the same evening groups of youths carrying sticks appeared roaming the streets.

The prime minister, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, sent troops into Tigray in November last year to topple the TPLF, accusing them of attacking military bases.

Since then thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, causing the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade in the war-torn Tigray region.

“I am feeling that things must have gone out of hand since both the federal government and our city are asking us to defend our own neighbourhoods,” said one local, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It has an implication that our defense forces are being defeated and dying out on the fronts.”

On Saturday, the US embassy in Addis Ababa urged Americans to leave Ethiopia “as soon as possible”, following Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and others. The UN Security Council has called for a ceasefire, but neither side has responded.

The Ethiopian government declared a nationwide emergency on Tuesday, with a TPLF spokesperson accusing the prime minister of using it to arrest “thousands of Tigrayans and Oromos”.

“We are only arresting those who are directly or indirectly supporting the illegal terrorist group,” police spokesperson Fasika Fante responded. “This includes moral, financial and propaganda support.”