Tigray leadership announces new war with Ethiopian government. Tigrayan forces seize Mekelle airport, and former enemies unite against Prime Minister Abiy

Armed forces of Ethiopia's Tigray region on Wednesday seized the airport in the regional capital Mekelle and are fighting the federal army in the neighbouring Afar region. The regional government led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has announced a "defensive war" against a "genocidal invasion", while the prime minister's adviser Getachew Reda claims, on the contrary, that the front has launched a "all-out offensive". The Pretoria Agreement, which in November 2022 ended a war that killed roughly 600,000 people according to an African Union estimate, has thus collapsed after almost four years, according to Reuters. Reuters/CNN ↗ Al Jazeera ↗

The airport, cancelled flights and fighting in Afar

Tigrayan forces took over Alula Aba Nega airport in Mekelle, which was guarded only by a small group of federal police. "While we were on our way to the airport for work, our supervisor called the driver and told him that the airport had been taken over by Tigray forces. Since there were no flights, he told us to return home," one employee told AFP. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to Mekelle, Aksum and Shire. Euronews/AFP ↗

According to a non-governmental source in the region, fighting flared up overnight into Wednesday in the Afar towns of Abala and Erebti. A former senior TPLF official claims that the insurgents control six Afar localities, including Berahle and Dalul, but this has not been independently verified. Euronews/AFP ↗ Citing four sources, including a government source and a diplomatic one, Reuters reports that in Afar the Tigrayans are fighting alongside a local armed group, and in the Amhara region together with Fano militias. Reuters/CNN ↗

Who started it is disputed. The day before the airport was seized, an air strike hit the town of Alamata in southern Tigray, killing at least 14 people and wounding 22, according to Tigrayan authorities. Mayor Mogos Shiferaw told the BBC that more than five drones and one warplane carried out over 20 strikes from half past three in the morning, that all the victims were civilians, and he blamed federal forces for the air raid. His words could not be independently verified. BBC ↗ Getachew Reda, the former head of the Tigrayan interim administration, who has parted ways with the front and now advises the prime minister, sees the blame the other way round. "The TPLF politico-military leadership has obviously taken irresponsibility to new heights," he wrote on X. Al Jazeera ↗

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera English broadcast an analysis of the airport seizure and the flight suspensions (just under seven minutes).

How the Pretoria Agreement fell apart

The agreement concluded in Pretoria, South Africa, was meant to disarm the Tigrayans, and its Article 7 explicitly prohibited the front from recruiting and mobilising. After it, Tigrayan forces handed over heavy weapons and thousands of fighters were demobilised, but political disputes remained open. One of the most sensitive is western Tigray, which has been administered by Amhara nationalists since the end of the war. Al Jazeera ↗ Courrier international ↗

Meanwhile, the front split. In 2025 Getachew Reda lost the leadership of the interim administration and was replaced by General Tadesse Werede. In April 2026 the TPLF unilaterally announced the restoration of the regional parliament elected back in 2020, which Addis Ababa considers illegal. The parliament was officially restored on 5 May and elected the front's longtime leader Debretsion Gebremichael as president of the region. Alongside the federally recognised interim administration, a second, parallel power thus emerged. SME ↗ Al Jazeera ↗

The violence returned piece by piece. In January, units close to the Tigrayan army crossed the Tekeze River into the disputed district of Tselemt, later took Alamata and Korem, and in August there was fighting in western Tigray near the Sudanese border. Al Jazeera ↗ At that time, residents of a Sudanese town pulled the bodies of 15 Tigrayan fighters out of the border river Setit. SITA ↗ In July, Human Rights Watch accused Tigrayan authorities of forcibly recruiting even fifteen-year-olds into the army; the TPLF denied it. TASR ↗ The June parliamentary elections, in which Abiy's Prosperity Party won roughly 90 percent of seats according to the electoral commission, were not held in Tigray. TASR ↗ SME ↗

Former enemies in one coalition

On Sunday 20 September, seven armed and opposition groups announced the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival. Besides the TPLF itself, it includes the Fano militias, the Oromo Liberation Army and four smaller groups. The statement was read on Tigrayan television by Zemene Kassie, chairman of the Amhara National Movement Fano. The aim is to overthrow Abiy's government and replace it with a transitional one. Courrier international ↗ TASR ↗

Its composition is remarkable. In the previous war, Fano fought alongside the federal army against the TPLF, and it turned against the government only in 2023. The Oromo Liberation Army has fought the government since 2018 in the country's most populous region, and the smaller groups come from Afar, the Somali Regional State and Benishangul-Gumuz. The announced alliance thus brings together groups from six of Ethiopia's twelve regional states. Courrier international ↗ Euronews/AFP ↗

Not every member is undisputed. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said on Monday that it had not joined the alliance and that a rival faction had used its name. Hiiraan Online ↗

The prime minister's spokesperson Billene Seyoum said on Monday that the alliance's members have been cooperating for some time with financial support from Eritrea. Eritrea repeatedly rejects similar accusations, and its information minister declined to comment on Wednesday's fighting. Reuters/CNN ↗

Eritrea, Sudan and the risk of a regional conflict

From 2020 to 2022, Eritrea fought against the TPLF on the side of Addis Ababa. The monitoring group ACLED recorded simultaneous movements of Eritrean and Tigrayan units towards western Tigray. It considers it highly likely that Eritrea and the Sudanese army would support a possible TPLF offensive with weapons and a safe rear area on their territory. ACLED ↗ In May, Ethiopia accused the Sudanese army of providing weapons and money to Tigrayan units; Sudan denied it. Euronews/AFP ↗

Ed Bach of the consultancy Verisk Maplecroft told the agency dpa that the seizure of the airport increases the likelihood that a large-scale conflict will flare up within the next week. According to him, it gives Abiy a pretext to step up drone strikes on TPLF positions and supply routes before a major offensive. NZZ/dpa ↗ Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group summed it up for Al Jazeera: "If we're not all the way back into something like a full war, we are very, very close." Al Jazeera ↗

Meanwhile, on Friday 18 September, the United States lifted the sanctions that the Biden administration imposed in 2021 on Eritrean officials and entities in connection with the war in Tigray. SME ↗

Read also: Sanctions on Eritrea could fall. Trump seeks a foothold on the Red Sea, but Iran and Russia are already waiting in Massawa

How European newsrooms see it

European media on Wednesday wrote about the threat of a return to war. Barcelona's La Vanguardia spoke of a "threat of civil war" and reported that the insurgents had taken over all three airports in Tigray. La Vanguardia ↗ Zagreb's Večernji list recalled that Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for reconciliation with Eritrea, and that in recent years activists have been demanding that it be taken away from him over the war in Tigray. Večernji list ↗ Finland's Yle quoted the Tigrayan government: "We will secure our survival by repelling this new round of genocidal attack with utmost determination." Yle ↗

In the Slovak and Czech media that HotInfo monitors, by Wednesday afternoon only the Sunday agency report on the formation of the alliance had appeared; the seizure of the airport had not yet. Slovakia, meanwhile, again has a diplomatic mission in Addis Ababa, and in June the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the embassy would be headed by the diplomat Rastislav Križan. TASR ↗

It should be added that reports on the course of the fighting rest mainly on anonymous local, humanitarian and security sources cited by AFP and Reuters, supplemented by public statements from both sides. The cited media did not independently determine who started the latest escalation.

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