Tigray’s regional leaders said on Wednesday that their forces had entered a new war with Ethiopia’s federal government as fighting erupted across Tigray and the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, threatening to unravel the peace deal that ended one of Africa’s deadliest recent conflicts.
The TPLF-led administration said Tigrayan forces had been ordered into what it described as a “defensive war” against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
The declaration marks a dramatic escalation after months of worsening tensions between Addis Ababa and the Tigrayan leadership and comes just days after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front joined six other armed groups in a new alliance seeking to remove Abiy’s government.
“Following the intensification of the invasion conducted through various methods by Abiy Ahmed’s … Prosperity regime against the people of Tigray … the Tigray National Regional Government announced that the Tigray Forces have been instructed to counter the attack and have entered a defensive war,” the regional administration said.
Four sources cited by Reuters — including a senior Ethiopian government official, a diplomat, a humanitarian source and another person with links to the TPLF and an allied militia — confirmed fighting was taking place in Tigray, Afar and Amhara.
Former senior TPLF official Getachew Reda, now an adviser to Abiy, said Tigrayan forces had seized federally controlled airports in Tigray and launched what he called an “all-out offensive” against government positions in Afar and Amhara.
Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to the region following the seizure of the airports.
Armed groups join fighting
In Afar, Tigrayan forces were fighting alongside a local armed group, while in Amhara they were operating alongside the Fano militia, according to the sources.
Fano fought alongside federal forces against the TPLF during Ethiopia’s 2020-2022 civil war but later turned against Addis Ababa, launching its own rebellion in 2023.
The TPLF and Fano are now members of the newly formed Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, an umbrella grouping of seven armed organisations opposed to Abiy’s government.
The new fighting raises the prospect of a return to large-scale conflict in northern Ethiopia nearly four years after the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement ended the war between federal forces and the TPLF.
That conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and caused a major humanitarian crisis across northern Ethiopia.
The federal government has accused the TPLF of violating the Pretoria Agreement and attempting to destabilise the country.
Abiy’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters earlier this week that members of the newly announced armed alliance had already been cooperating and accused neighbouring Eritrea of providing financial backing.
Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting Ethiopian armed groups.
Spokespeople for Abiy, Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on Wednesday’s fighting.
