Tigrian forces have seized control of an airport in northern Ethiopia. The Tigry People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, fought a 2-year civil war with the federal government that ended in 2022. The airport in McKelle is one of the region’s main connections to the rest of the country. Flights have been suspended.
In July, the TPLF declared its peace deal with the government in Addis Ababa effectively dead. And this week, the TPLF and six other armed groups announced an alliance aimed at removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration. 600,000 people were killed in the civil war between 2020 and 2022. The formation of the new opposition coalition has increased fears that Ethiopia is heading for another conflict.
Alan Boswell will bring you in. You’re the Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group, joining us from Nairobi this hour. What’s going on here? So, uh, is this effectively the clearest sign that the peace agreement is completely breaking down, and what happens next? I think it’s fair to say the peace agreement has completely broken down.
Tigray tensions rise as Ethiopian Airlines suspends flights to three airports
Um, and we are in a very, very dangerous situation. Uh, as you mentioned, the TPLF has joined with other um rebel groups to uh uh to say that they’re going to overthrow and topple the current regime, which is something very close to a declaration of war. We’ve seen an ongoing and escalating, uh, drone campaign by the federal government against the TPLF.
And then you’ve seen quite an escalation over the past, uh, day. And so if we’re not all the way back into something like a full war, So, how serious a threat does this alliance of the armed opposition groups represent to Adi Sababa? Well, most analysts don’t really think it poses much of a direct threat to the central rule, um, uh, in, uh, uh, in Ethiopia by, uh, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Um, but there are some areas where those forces, uh, are near to each other and could do joint attacks. Um, and that could be what we’ve started to see today, especially on the Tigra Amhara border. Um, but I think mostly the broad alliance is more rhetorical, um, uh, because most of these armed groups are, you know, quite far from each other in terms of operational area. Siegel Says AI Could Cause Severe Harm To Young Users.
None of them really looks like they have the capacity to take on the federal government. But do they have the capacity to coordinate militarily? If they do, we could be looking at a much broader national conflict rather than just Tigra. Yes, there are some bordering areas where they do look like they are trying to, uh, coordinate operationally, especially in the Tigra Mhara border.
There you have some groups, uh, known as Fono, who are Amhara, and the TPLF, who are Tigraan, who look like they’re trying to coordinate. Still, these groups also disagree on several key, really ideological points. So, it’s more of an umbrella group. It’s still an open question how much they can coordinate operationally. Still, for sure, the federal government is taking this all very, very seriously, and, uh, we are very close, as I said, to something like a full outbreak of war.
And there’s another concern here, of course: Ethiopia’s relationship with Eritrea, right, which has deteriorated sharply. Adisaba accuses Eritrea of supporting armed groups inside Ethiopia, something Eritrea denies, so could a renewed Ethiopia-Tigray conflict then pull Eritrea directly into the fighting? Then this could turn into a much wider Horn of Africa crisis.
Yes, that’s exactly right. The armed groups coordinating in Ethiopia are also aligning with some of Ethiopia’s key external enemies, most importantly, Eratraa, as you mentioned. Now, Eratraa and the Ethiopian government fought together against the TPLF in this last war, a very deadly war that took place a few years ago.
But now, Eritrea has allied itself with the TPLF and other opposition. Um, and they are also quite close with the Sudin army, and relations between Ethiopia and the Sunni army have been deteriorating. We’ve also seen Ethiopia get more involved, uh, in the Sudan war as well, essentially against the Sunni army, at least along its border.
So this is all becoming one big regional mess and could get very, very ugly if we don’t see de-escalation. The previous war, of course, which was from 2020 to 2022, the Tigra war killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. Who, if anyone, has the leverage right now to prevent this round from becoming another full-scale war? Well, that’s a good question.
There’s quite a lot of leverage over, uh, over the respective parties. I would say, uh, in the Gulf, for instance, the UAE is a very close partner of the federal government. Um, I think it’s harder, though, to find direct leverage per se over the TPLF, which has been steadily escalating the situation since they restored power in April earlier this year.
We have seen some mediation efforts, for example, led by the AU under former Nigerian President Obasanjo. We’ve seen the US engage in some shuttle diplomacy, but we haven’t seen any high-level intervention to stop further escalation. The diplomat’s track so far doesn’t appear to have any traction.
Uh, the two sides are very far apart about even what prospective talks would look like, and this declaration by the TPLF with other armed groups that it’s going to overthrow and topple the regime is, of course, a very hard one to walk back from, into immediate peace talks. So, uh, unfortunately, it’s not an encouraging situation right now.
