Tigray Forces Seize Three Airports as Ethiopia's 2022 Peace Deal Breaks Down

Forces aligned with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) took control of the airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire on Tuesday, and Ethiopian Airlines suspended all flights to the three cities. Fighting has since spread south and east into the Amhara and Afar regions, ending nearly four years of a truce that the African Union brokered at Pretoria in November 2022 to halt a war in which researchers estimate roughly 600,000 people died.

The two sides give opposite accounts of who started it. Tigrayan commanders say the federal military opened a full-scale offensive with infantry, mechanised units and drones, and that their own operations are a counterattack. Getachew Reda, a former senior TPLF official who now advises Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, says the TPLF attacked first, according to CNN. The trigger both sides point to is the same: air and drone strikes on the town of Alamata before dawn on September 22. Alamata's mayor, Mogos Shiferaw, told the BBC that more than five drones and a fighter jet carried out over 21 strikes beginning around 3:30 a.m., killing at least 14 civilians and wounding 22, and that two secondary schools were hit. The TPLF called the strikes an invasion and declared what it termed a defensive war.

Two days before the strikes, the TPLF announced an alliance with six other armed groups drawn from across Ethiopia, including the Fano militia of Amhara and the Oromo Liberation Army, with the stated aim of removing Abiy's government. That is the structural change in this round of fighting. The 2020 to 2022 war pitted the federal army and its allies against one region. The declared coalition now spans the country's three largest ethnic constituencies.

On Thursday the Ethiopian National Defense Force said it had killed 272 TPLF fighters and wounded 260 more after repelling an assault on the North Wollo zone of Amhara. Agence France-Presse could not verify the figures, and the army gave no figures for its own or civilian casualties. Chinese state media carried the military's account under the headline that the rebel offensive had failed. Abiy's spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters that members of the new alliance had been coordinating for some time with financial backing from Eritrea. Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting armed groups inside Ethiopia. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Ethiopia's president, Taye Atske-Selassie Amde, said his country had shown immense restraint and blamed foreign interference.

The African Union, the United Nations and the European Union have all called for an immediate halt and a return to the Pretoria process. Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that both sides must protect civilians and warned that the agreement's unimplemented provisions, disarmament, the return of displaced people and the status of Western Tigray, left both parties with reasons to rearm. A UN briefing this week said a drone strike in north-western Tigray hit a truck carrying food aid for displaced people and that road closures have already paused relief movements. The UN estimated 3.3 million people were internally displaced across Ethiopia as of mid-2025.

The timing is difficult for the economy. Ethiopia has been running a four-year, $3.4 billion program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since July 2024, and the Fund reached a staff-level agreement on the fifth review in June. The government also reached a preliminary restructuring deal with holders of more than 45% of its defaulted eurobond, cutting the face value by 15% and issuing a new note maturing in 2029. Domestic security was the standing risk flagged in that program. It is now the live one.