Federal troops reportedly enter Tigray's capital, witnesses say. Ethiopian government has not confirmed it, and front leader vows further strikes

According to humanitarian workers and a local journalist, federal government forces entered Mekele, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region, on Saturday. There is no official confirmation: a spokesperson for the Ethiopian armed forces and the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not respond to questions from AFP. According to the same sources, fighters of the Tigray People's Liberation Front left the city and left government buildings and police stations unguarded.

A city without police, banks and internet

On Saturday morning a local journalist sent AFP a single sentence: "TPLF militants and leaders are leaving Mekelle." Government buildings and police stations remained without security personnel, and residents saw armed front members leaving the city. Der Standard ↗

Residents described mainly fear of the interval: of what would come after one authority left and before another arrived. One worried about government and public property, the other put it more bluntly: "Lawlessness could spread in the city, and I am also afraid for my life. I want us to quickly return to law and order." Only on Saturday evening did humanitarian sources report that government troops could be seen at several points in the city. Fighting was not reported from the centre itself, but according to residents and Der Standard, gunfire could be heard outside it. Al Jazeera ↗

The first concrete step came at the airport: a pro-government militia announced its occupation on Friday, and on Saturday three sources, including a city resident, confirmed this to Reuters. Alula Aba Nega Airport lies about ten kilometres east of the centre and was one of three that the front had seized in the region on 23 September, when the fighting flared up. Al Jazeera ↗

The advance of government forces on Mekele and the mass departure of Tigrayan fighters were summarised by the French public broadcaster TV5MONDE in a report dated 3 October. The commentary is in French, and the footage shows the airport and access roads to the city.



Verifying anything from Mekele is nearly impossible. Telecommunications networks in Tigray are severely disrupted, banking services in the region have been suspended by the government according to the BBC, and internet access is cut off — and it is not even clear who ordered the disconnection. About six to seven million people live in the region. BBC ↗

In 2020 it looked exactly like this

The entry of government troops into Mekele is not a new picture in this war. The same thing happened at the end of 2020: the army took the city, the front retreated to the mountains, switched to guerrilla warfare, and in mid-2021 retook Mekele. The war then continued for another year and a half. ORF ↗

And the chairman of the front, Debretsion Gebremichael, suggested that the scenario could be repeated. In a video message published on Thursday he said his forces' strategy was to strike the enemy wherever they chose; Austria's ORF read this as an announced switch to guerrilla tactics. The same day he admitted that federal units had occupied parts of the region, and added that his forces would attack at the right time. Al Jazeera ↗

According to an African Union estimate, the war of 2020 to 2022 claimed about 600,000 lives. It ended only with the Pretoria Agreement of November 2022, which the African Union itself brokered. Fighting resumed on 23 September after months of tension, and each side accuses the other of violating the agreement. The front claims it was responding to a federal offensive, including drone strikes, while the government says Tigrayans attacked first after occupying airports in the region. Who started the fighting remains disputed. NOS ↗ BBC ↗

Read also: Tigray's leadership announced a new war with the Ethiopian government. Tigrayan forces seized the airport in Mekele, and former enemies have joined against Prime Minister Abiy

Tigrayans against Tigrayans

The least readable element of this round is that the federal army is not the only force opposing the front; an armed group made up of Tigrayans themselves is also fighting it. The Tigray Peace Forces are fighting on Addis Ababa's side, and at the end of September they announced that they had taken Alamata, a town near the southern border of the region which, according to Al Jazeera, serves as a supply hub for soldiers, fuel and food. From there it was possible to advance north towards Mekele. Al Jazeera ↗

The commander of this group announced on social media on Thursday that TPLF forces had been destroyed. This could not be verified. The head of Al Jazeera Arabic's Ethiopian bureau, Mohammed Taha Tawakel, commented that the federal army gives the Tigray Peace Forces full support, but the original front still holds several towns and maintains contact with Eritrea along more than 800 kilometres of border. In his view, this opens the prospect that the conflict will increasingly turn into an internal struggle between Tigrayans themselves. Al Jazeera ↗

The other side of the front is equally new. On 20 September seven armed and political groups announced an alliance whose declared aim is to remove the government of Abiy Ahmed and establish a transitional government. It includes an Amhara militia fighting near Lalibela, a pilgrimage site with rock-hewn churches from the 13th century, where according to the BBC 33 foreign tourists were stranded for a week. BBC ↗

A war pressing on three borders at once

Fighting has spread from Tigray into the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar. Afar is particularly sensitive: it contains the corridor to Djibouti, through which most of Ethiopia's imports pass, including fuel. Landlocked Ethiopia has no other significant access to the sea, and this is the subject of a separate dispute. Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly demanded sovereign access to the Red Sea for the country, and the Eritrean port of Assab is cited as a target, although in March he declared that he would not go to war over the sea. Asmara rejects his demand and has described his accusations as a pretext for an attack. Al Jazeera ↗ Africanews ↗

Why this war cannot be read merely as an internal Ethiopian affair is analysed in a twelve-minute report by Germany's DW News from 1 October, which focuses precisely on the link between the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. It is in English.



Addis Ababa accuses Eritrea, Egypt and Sudan of supporting the rebels. All three countries deny this. The dispute has moved into diplomacy: Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled Eritrean diplomats, and Eritrea then severed relations completely on 1 October. Addis Ababa also expelled an Egyptian diplomat, and Cairo responded in kind. The African Union called on all three countries to "maximum restraint". El País ↗

On the same Thursday, the conflict apparently reached the capital for the first time: an explosion was reported near the Ministry of Defence in Addis Ababa. The government has not commented on it. Al Jazeera ↗

What we know and do not know about the civilian toll

Near Alamata, at least 52 civilians were killed during three days of fighting, sources at a local hospital told the BBC. Among the victims were children, including a three-day-old infant, mothers and cattle herders; twelve people died in a single strike on a market. Doctors Without Borders reported that the hospitals it supports in Tigray had admitted more than 700 wounded. BBC ↗

Amnesty International announced on Friday that since fighting resumed it had received credible reports of civilian facilities being destroyed by artillery fire and airstrikes, and of intensified forced conscription. At the same time, the Ethiopian army claims it killed around 270 Tigrayan fighters and wounded over 200 in the Amhara region. This is its own figure, which no one has independently confirmed. Al Jazeera ↗

Caution is also warranted with figures that sound precise. The BBC cannot report from Tigray, as communication with the region is cut off, and France24 warned that a wave of disinformation is spreading around the renewed fighting. Almost everything we know today about Mekele comes from individual residents, humanitarian workers and one local journalist. France24 ↗

The Nobel Committee spoke out nine days before the new prize

Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for efforts to reconcile with Eritrea after two decades of conflict. The war he waged against the front in 2020 to 2022 seriously damaged his reputation as a peacemaker.

On Wednesday, three days before the fighting approached Mekele, Secretary of the Nobel Committee Kristian Berg Harpviken told AFP: "Clearly the developments in Ethiopia since 2020 onwards have been very negative and the last outbreak or conflict is, of course, of deep concern." He does not consider the award to have been a mistake — "by no means", he added — and recalled that the committee had previously issued a statement implicitly calling on Abiy, as a state leader, to act in line with the values on which the prize rests. TASR ↗

The Norwegian Nobel Institute will announce the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday 9 October at 11:00. Nobel Peace Prize ↗

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*Illustrative photo: a street in Mekele, 2013. Author MarcD., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.*