Ethiopia's Tigray war

Why is there a war in Tigray?

The TPLF led Ethiopia's ruling coalition from 1991 to 2018. Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018. In 2019 he merged the coalition into the new Prosperity Party, and the TPLF refused to join. In 2020 the federal government postponed the national election because of COVID-19. The TPLF said the government's mandate had run out, and in September Tigray held its own regional election. The federal government called the vote illegal. In October the federal parliament ordered officials to cut contact with Tigray's leaders and cut some federal funds to the region. In November 2020 the government accused Tigrayan forces of attacking army bases in Tigray, and Abiy sent the army in. A TPLF official later called the attack a preemptive strike.

The war lasted two years. Eritrean troops and Amhara forces fought on the federal side. On November 2, 2022 the government and the TPLF signed a peace deal in Pretoria, South Africa, brokered by the African Union. The TPLF agreed to disarm, and the government agreed to restore services to Tigray. A follow-up deal tied the handover of the TPLF's heavy weapons to the withdrawal of foreign forces and of forces other than the federal army.

The deal left disputes open. The TPLF says Eritrean troops stayed in parts of Tigray. Displaced Tigrayans could not return to western Tigray, which Amhara calls Wolkait, or to Raya. Amhara officials claim both areas and say they were moved into Tigray after the TPLF-led coalition took power in 1991. In 2025 the TPLF split. A faction led by Debretsion Gebremichael pushed out the head of Tigray's interim administration, Getachew Reda, who later became an adviser to Abiy. In May 2025 Ethiopia's election board revoked the TPLF's registration as a party. In May 2026 the TPLF restored Tigray's pre-war regional council and made Debretsion regional president. The federal government did not recognize the move. Tigray did not vote in Ethiopia's national election in June 2026.

In January and again in August 2026 federal and Tigrayan forces clashed in western Tigray. After the clash near Sheraro on August 1, each side said the other had attacked first. On September 20, 2026 the TPLF joined six other armed groups, including the Amhara Fano militia and the Oromo Liberation Army, in an alliance to overthrow Abiy. The groups accuse him of dictatorial rule and want an inclusive transitional government. On September 23 Tigrayan forces seized the airport of Mekelle. The government calls it a planned TPLF offensive. Abiy says the TPLF bought weapons and recruited young people by force instead of disarming. The TPLF calls it self-defense and says the government never implemented the Pretoria agreement. Tigray's TPLF-led authorities also accuse the ruling party of a long blockade and drone campaign against the region.

Why did Ethiopia and Eritrea break apart?

Eritrea, a former Italian colony, was joined to Ethiopia in a federation in 1952 and annexed in 1962. It became independent in 1993 after a 30-year war. The two countries fought a border war from 1998 to 2000 in which an estimated 80,000 people died. In July 2018 Abiy made peace with Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki, and Eritrean troops fought on the federal side in the 2020-2022 war. Eritrea was not a party to the Pretoria agreement, and relations cooled after it was signed.

Since 2023 Abiy has said Ethiopia needs access to the Red Sea. In March 2025 he told parliament that Ethiopia would not invade Eritrea and would seek sea access by peaceful means. In September 2025 he said Ethiopia's loss of its coast "was yesterday's mistake" and that "tomorrow it will be corrected." Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of planning a war to take its port of Assab.

On October 1, 2026 Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Asmara, saying the diplomats threatened its security. Eritrea cut all diplomatic ties the same day. On October 9 Ethiopia told the UN Security Council that Eritrea had sent troops across the border and that Ethiopia was acting in self-defense. Eritrea's foreign minister, Osman Saleh, replied that Ethiopia's accusations amounted to a "declaration of war" and were part of a plan to justify a war of aggression. ACLED reported Eritrean troops crossing at Zalambessa in early October and later pulling back. Eritrea denies backing the TPLF and says reports of an incursion are false. Its information minister called them "wild allegations." On October 19 Abiy warned Eritrea of "severe consequences" if it kept backing Ethiopia's enemies. Russia offered on October 16 to host talks between the two countries and repeated the offer on October 28. As of October 30 neither had accepted.

How many people died in the first Tigray war?

No one knows the exact toll. Researchers at Ghent University, led by Jan Nyssen, estimate that about 518,000 civilians died in Tigray from November 2020 to the end of 2022, with a range of 311,000 to 808,000. The estimate leaves out deaths in Amhara and Afar and soldiers killed in battle. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), which counts deaths from fighting and attacks on civilians, recorded 333,126 deaths in Ethiopia from 2016 to 2025, most of them in the Tigray war.

Most of the civilians in Tigray died from famine and the collapse of health care. In 2021 the UN said a "de facto blockade" by the government was keeping food, medicine and fuel out of Tigray. Ethiopia's UN mission called any claim of a blockade "baseless," and the government blamed Tigrayan forces for problems with aid.

Investigators accused all sides of atrocities. In September 2022 a commission of experts set up by the UN Human Rights Council found reasonable grounds to believe that the government had used the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. It also found that Tigrayan forces had killed and raped civilians in the Amhara towns of Kobo and Chenna in 2021. Ethiopia's UN ambassador called the report "incoherent and sketchy." In March 2023 the US government found that Ethiopian, Eritrean, Tigrayan and Amhara forces had all committed war crimes. It found that Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara forces also committed crimes against humanity, and that Amhara forces carried out ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in western Tigray.