- Renewed war in Tigray merges Ethiopia's existing civil wars, as a seven-group opposition alliance challenges the federal government.
- Continued fighting threatens civilians already hit by past wars and food insecurity; 150,000 people were displaced in Afar alone.
- Diplomatic ruptures with Eritrea and accusations against Sudan and Egypt risk turning the conflict into a regional war.
- International partners must act now: press all parties to de-escalate and back a new, inclusive mediation process.
Observers of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa region have been sounding the alarm over the risks of renewed civil war since late 2022, towards the end of the first Tigray war. Those calls have largely fallen on deaf ears, as both the protagonists of the myriad internal conflicts and the international community have failed to stop the slow slide into all-out war.
On the evening of 23 September, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in coordination with the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) and Afar National Unity Revolutionary Front (Ugugumo), opened a large-scale offensive against the Ethiopian federal army and its allies on multiple fronts. The TPLF and its allies claim they are fighting a defensive war against what they describe as an ongoing invasion by federal forces. Those attacks were preceded by months of military build-up by both sides and sporadic skirmishes, as well as routine drone strikes by the federal government hitting military and civilian targets, including a humanitarian aid convoy.
While the return of large-scale war in Tigray is receiving due attention from commentators and foreign governments alike, it is not the only conflict that is taking place in the country. The government was already fighting major insurgencies in the Amhara and Oromia regions, with rebel activity also in the Benishangul-Gumuz and Afar regions. In many ways the current escalation can be seen as the expansion and merging of the multiple civil wars taking place in the country. Indeed, just days before the outbreak of clashes on multiple fronts in southern Tigray, north-eastern Amhara and parts of Afar, seven armed groups, including the TPLF, AFNM and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), announced an alliance aimed at overthrowing the Abiy Ahmed government and establishing a transitional order. The first few days of the conflict indicate military coordination among at least some of the coalition’s members, particularly between the TPLF, AFNM and Ugugumo forces. Within a week, the crisis had taken on a regional dimension. Having accused Eritrea of backing the rebels, Addis Ababa expelled Eritrean diplomats, prompting Asmara to sever diplomatic ties on 1 October.
What does this mean for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa?
Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa have been beset by violent civil wars with catastrophic humanitarian consequences in recent years. The last conflict in Tigray (2020–2022) left as many as 600,000 dead, according to the AU’s special envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and survivors had to face destroyed livelihoods and lifelong trauma. In the Amhara region, fighting between the army and the Fano insurgency (organised as the AFNM since January 2026) has rendered large parts of the region ungovernable. Amid large-scale loss of life and property, more than four million children remain out of school. Meanwhile, Oromia has also been the scene of violent conflict and ethnically motivated attacks against Amhara and Oromo civilians by both opposition fighters and government-affiliatedformations. Benishangul-Gumuz, Afar and Southern Ethiopia have experienced conflict too. Renewed conflict in Tigray thus compounds an already precarious security and humanitarian situation.
The government has so far been fighting each of these insurgencies separately, with the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and allied regional security forces and militia battling the AFNM and OLA, as well as smaller armed groups in Benishangul-Gumuz. However, the formation of this new alliance, while still in its infancy, necessarily changes the military and political calculations for the federal government. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government potentially faces coordinated resistance from insurgents in at least four regional states where nearly two-thirds of the country’s 130 million people live.
A fragile alliance
Politically, the alliance is trying to broaden public support by portraying its activities as a fight to build a transitional order based on popular participation and consensus among the country’s political factions. The alliance’s founding statement was read out by AFNM leader Zemene Kassie on TPLF-controlled Tigrai TV, and its representatives have since made their case mainly through diaspora-based media, including joint media briefings. However, the alliance faces an intractable task. Its members already contend with some degree of internal resistance within the constituencies of the TPLF, AFNM and OLA. In the unlikely event that they unseat the federal government, it will fall to them to address the myriad grievances and competing interests among their diverse constituencies. Potential fault lines include competing territorial claims, conflicting interpretations of history and of the future of the Ethiopian state, and the status of Addis Ababa. Thus, even if the alliance were able to prevail militarily, converting a tactical alliance into a stable political settlement would be a far greater challenge.
The experience of the first Tigray war suggests a sustained war between the government and its adversaries is likely to cost enormous numbers of lives and lead to severe human rights violations, a scenario that could be catastrophic for a civilian population still reeling from the recent war in Tigray, the civil wars in the Amhara and Oromia regions, as well as localised conflicts elsewhere. There have already been reports of dozens of civilian casualties and disruption of essential services such as telecommunications and banking.
Some of the areas where active fighting is taking place are hotspots of severe food insecurity caused by El Niño-driven rainfall delays. This precarious situation could easily turn disastrous in the event of continued fighting and disruption of humanitarian aid and regular supply lines. Large-scale displacement, including across international borders, could overwhelm humanitarian systems in the region. Some 150,000 people are reported to have been displaced in the Afar region alone in the first week of fighting.
While most of the fighting is currently taking place in southern Tigray, north-eastern Amhara and parts of Afar, reports of blasts in Addis Ababa, including at the ENDF headquarters, suggest the conflict may not remain confined to the north. Fighting could also increase in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz if members of the alliance intensify attacks against government forces. Escalation, particularly in Oromia, besides stretching the army and its allies, could also have grave consequences for civilians, especially given repeated ethnically motivated attacks against Amhara and Oromo civilians in western Oromia. More broadly, any efforts by the federal government to fracture the nascent alliance by instrumentalising political cleavages among its members’ constituencies, such as the dispute over Western Tigray or tensions between Amhara and Oromo communities in Wollega, risk stoking inter-ethnic violence around the country. Among the worrying signs is anti-opposition messaging from government officials, including the Prime Minister, that amplifies both historical and current fault lines between ethnic groups, particularly Amharas and Tigrayans, ostensibly to undermine the alliance.
The increasingly likely regionalisation of the conflict should also alarm the international community. Ethiopia and its neighbours have a history of mutual destabilisation that dates back decades. In recent years, Sudan has provided refuge to contingents of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), the military arm of the TPLF, which have reportedly been fighting alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Eritrea, for its part, has been accused of supporting the AFNM and has reportedly established close military ties with the TPLF. The Ethiopian government, in turn, has been credibly accused of supporting the RSF, including by facilitating arms shipments and allowing the group to launch ground offensives and drone strikes from Ethiopian soil. Addis Ababa has also been supporting Eritrean opposition groups following the deterioration of relations between the two governments at the end of the first Tigray war.
Those complex relations have created a combustible dynamic that threatens to turn the current conflict into a regional conflagration. Tensions rose further after Ethiopian officials accused governments in Asmara, Khartoum and Cairo of backing opposition forces in the days following the outbreak of large-scale clashes. Addis Ababa has since closed its embassy in Asmara, and Ethiopia and Egypt have expelled each other’s diplomats. Even more concerning are claims by officials from Ethiopia’s Afar region that Eritrean troops are fighting alongside opposition forces. While these claims have not been independently verified, any confirmed Eritrean involvement could provoke a military response from Addis Ababa. Moreover, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has expressed ambitions to secure sovereign access to the sea through Eritrea’s port of Assab, increasing the possibility that perceived or actual provocations involving Eritrea could lead to a broader military confrontation. Beyond the obvious humanitarian consequences, a war involving Eritrea could have far-reaching geopolitical repercussions, including further deterioration of maritime security in the Red Sea.
What has been the response from the international community?
Ethiopia’s international partners have been largely ineffective, and in some cases counterproductive, in preventing renewed war in Tigray and in addressing the civil wars in other parts of the country. The African Union (AU), the convener of the peace process that ended the first Tigray war, has largely failed to oversee implementation of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (the Pretoria agreement). The AU’s efforts in the lead-up to the outbreak of the current clashes were also undermined by accusations from opposition groups that Obasanjo is sympathetic to the government. Meanwhile, the US and EU member states have been largely passive when it comes to putting together a meaningful diplomatic process, despite clear warnings. Instead, Washington’s recent measures include lifting its arms embargo on Ethiopia and sanctioning TPLF leaders. Gulf countries, particularly the UAE, have added fuel to regional rivalries. The UAE’s support for the RSF in Sudan, including via Ethiopian territory, has contributed to the formation of a regional bloc involving Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt and Ethiopian opposition groups against the Addis Ababa government.
The international response to the latest escalation has been largely informed by geopolitical and economic considerations. Public statements from the US, UK and France have uniformly put the blame on the TPLF. Those and other statements that fail to address the government’s role in causing the current crisis suggest a reluctance among international partners to upset the Ethiopian government. Several factors work in Addis Ababa’s favour, including its influence in the AU, its role as a security partner in a volatile region, and the commercial opportunities created by recent economic reforms, from the opening of key sectors such as banking and telecommunications to mega-infrastructure projects such as the $12.5 billion Bishoftu airport. Regardless of the motives, this posture, which is unlikely to be effective, risks legitimising the Ethiopian government’s long-standing militaristic approach towards its opponents, which has been among the main drivers of conflict in the country, including the current escalation.
What should be done?
Most worrying of all is the absence of concerted diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting. While international partners, including the UN, have voiced support for continuing the AU-led peace process, it is clear that the AU process, built for a bilateral dispute between the TPLF and the federal government, is not equipped to deal with a conflict that has evolved in its parties, geography and complexity. Something new and more robust is needed. Any such process will require the inclusion of all alliance members and a willingness to address the government’s own violations of the Pretoria agreement if it is to regain the confidence of the opposition alliance, which currently sees the AU as too close to the government.
Stopping the conflict from further engulfing the country and the region requires a coordinated effort from Ethiopia’s partners. Governments and international bodies such as the UN, AU and EU need to make concerted calls for de-escalation to all parties, including the government. Such calls should be accompanied by concrete steps to start political dialogue between the government and its opponents. Partners have leverage on both sides. Western support is critical for Ethiopia’s $3.4 billion IMF programme and World Bank financing. On the alliance’s side, pressure on its regional backers could be paired with the incentive of a seat at the table. Beyond the urgent task of stopping the fighting, diplomatic efforts should include preparing the ground for long-term engagement to address deeper issues driving conflict in the country, including disputed territories such as Western Tigray, disagreements over the constitution and the federal system, and accountability for wartime atrocities. To avoid duplicating mediation initiatives, international partners could build on the AU-led process, but only with substantial changes to its format and mediators. One such change could be to replace Obasanjo with an envoy acceptable to all parties. Most importantly, any mediation process should avoid repeating the past mistake of excluding certain actors involved in the conflict. If it is to lead to long-term stability in the country, the process must address the deeper drivers of conflict outlined above.
Once the immediate threat of regional war is contained, a lasting settlement must avoid the shortcomings of the Pretoria agreement, which left disputes such as Western Tigray unresolved and alienated Amhara and Eritrean actors who had fought in the war. Only an inclusive process, backed by sustained international pressure, can avert further political collapse and humanitarian catastrophe.