Tigray's renewed war widens into a regional diplomatic crisis
Fighting has returned despite the 2022 Pretoria agreement, while relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have deteriorated sharply.
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Tigray is the northernmost region of Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa. It borders Eritrea to the north and Sudan to the west, and its capital, Mekelle, lies about 300 miles north of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
The 2022 Pretoria agreement stopped the last Tigray war. This week, organised fighting returned on a scale that has put both the agreement and Ethiopia's regional relationships under pressure.
Airports seized, fighting spreads
On 23 September the African Union said Tigrayan forces had seized and occupied the airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire, detained federal personnel and disrupted civilian air services.1
The African Union also reported fighting in southern Tigray and neighbouring Afar. The United Nations later said new displacement was emerging and that incidents were affecting aid workers, humanitarian assets and civilian infrastructure.2
Control of individual towns has shifted during the fighting, and military claims remain contested. The broader fact is clearer: armed forces on both sides are again fighting over territory after nearly four years of an agreement intended to end hostilities.
Some of the land is itself disputed. Western Tigray has been held by Amhara forces since late 2020 and is administered by the Amhara region. The Pretoria agreement left its status to be settled under Ethiopia's constitution, and it remains unresolved.34
Pretoria still exists
The African Union continues to describe the Pretoria Agreement of 2 November 2022 as the cornerstone of peace in northern Ethiopia.1
That agreement ended a war that displaced millions of people. Its death toll has never been established; the African Union's chief mediator, Olusegun Obasanjo, said in January 2023 that about 600,000 people may have died.5 It created a framework for disarmament, political dialogue and the restoration of federal authority and services.
It did not settle every dispute, and implementation had already stalled before this month's escalation.
The conflict is becoming regional
On 1 October the African Union issued a separate statement about heightened tensions between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt, urging all three governments to avoid further escalation.6
Ethiopian officials have accused Eritrea and other neighbours of supporting Tigrayan forces. Those governments have rejected or disputed the allegations. Reuters describes a changed regional alignment in which Ethiopia and Eritrea, allies during the 2020–22 war, are now increasingly hostile to one another.7
On 1 October Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and closed its embassy in Eritrea, according to Associated Press.8 Hours later, Eritrea said it had "no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia".9
These diplomatic steps do not establish that outside governments are directing the fighting. They do show that the conflict is no longer contained within the political relationship between Addis Ababa and Tigray.
The Pretoria framework remains the only established agreement for bringing the federal government and Tigrayan leadership back to negotiations. Its weakness is that the regional environment around it has changed: former allies have become adversaries, and disputes involving Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan and Red Sea access now overlap with Ethiopia's internal conflict.
What remains unresolved
The immediate questions are whether the parties return to negotiations, whether civilian flights and humanitarian access can resume, and whether regional governments step back from the confrontation.
The agreement that ended the last war still exists. What is now being tested is whether it can survive the return of the conditions it was designed to prevent.
For the longer background, read How Ethiopia's Tigray conflict reached a second war.