Ethiopia retakes Tigray as its rift with Eritrea deepens

Four years after a peace deal ended one of the deadliest wars of the century, northern Ethiopia is at war again, and the conflict now threatens to pull in its neighbours.

In the space of a few weeks in October, Eritrea cut diplomatic ties with Ethiopia, federal forces captured Tigray’s regional capital, Mekelle, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed named a caretaker government for the region. Ethiopian tanks have since been reported moving towards the Eritrean border.

How the fighting began

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated Ethiopian politics for decades before Abiy came to power in 2018, launched an offensive against the federal government in September. Tigrayan forces fought government-backed troops in Tigray, Amhara and Afar.

Addis Ababa accuses Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing an alliance of seven armed groups fighting the government. All three deny it.

A rapid sequence of events

• 1 October: Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats. Hours later, Eritrea severed diplomatic relations. The same morning, explosions were reported at Ethiopia’s Ministry of Defence in Addis Ababa.
• Early October: Ethiopian forces took Mekelle. The TPLF said it had withdrawn and moved its administration “temporarily” elsewhere.
• Around 12 October: Government forces reportedly retook the towns of Adwa and Adigrat without a fight.
• 14 October: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Abiy and urged de-escalation.
• 15 October: Federal troops and the pro-government Tigray Peace Force said they had entered Aksum. The militia claimed Eritrean troops had retreated towards the border with heavy losses, a claim Eritrea’s information minister rejected as false. Neither side’s account could be independently verified.
• 16 October: Abiy named a caretaker government for Tigray for six months, with the aim of holding regional elections within that period.

Why Eritrea matters

The relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea has swung from war to alliance and back. The two fought a border war from 1998 to 2000. After Abiy made peace with Eritrea in 2018, Eritrean troops fought alongside the federal army against the TPLF in the 2020–2022 war.

That alliance has since collapsed. Analysts say Eritrea is now backing the forces it once helped fight, which Asmara denies. Reports of Ethiopian armour heading for the border have raised fears of a direct war between the two states.

The wider region

The crisis does not stop at Ethiopia’s borders. Egypt and Ethiopia have expelled each other’s diplomats, with tensions still high over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile. Sudan is fighting its own civil war. Analysts warn that the conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan are becoming increasingly connected.

At home, Ethiopia is also dealing with violence in other regions. In late October, hundreds of Ethiopians crossed into Kenya at Moyale, fleeing tensions between the Oromia and Somali regional administrations.

The African Union Commission has urged Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt to show “maximum restraint”.

The political backdrop

Abiy’s Prosperity Party won 438 seats in the 547-seat parliament in the June general election. Only 486 seats were filled: voting did not take place in Tigray or in some constituencies in Amhara, Oromia and other regions, mainly because of insecurity, leaving 61 seats vacant. Opposition parties accused the government of arresting their leaders and obstructing their campaigns.

What to watch

• Whether Ethiopian forces stop at the border or cross into Eritrea.
• How the caretaker administration governs Tigray, and whether the TPLF regroups.
• Humanitarian access: Tigray’s population suffered famine-like conditions during the last war, and banks and shops in Mekelle shut as fighting approached. They have since begun to reopen, Al Jazeera reported on 22 October.
• Diplomatic efforts by the AU, the United States and Gulf states to prevent a regional war.

Sources: Al Jazeera, 15 October 2026; Daily Maverick/Reuters, 16 October 2026; OkayAfrica, 2 October 2026; Wikipedia, 2026 Ethiopian general election; Rio Times Africa brief, 23 October 2026; Al Jazeera, 22 October 2026.

Top photo: The Mekelle Cross monument in Tigray’s regional capital (file photo, 2018). Photo: FikreT, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0