Ethiopia (Tigray)

Aid to 3.6 million Ethiopians overall is at risk unless new support is sourced, the World Food Programme warns. … The East African country is recovering from two years of brutal civil war between federal forces and rebels in the northern region of Tigray, which ended in November 2022 and killed at least 600,000 people.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday appointed Tadesse Worede to lead the interim administration in the northern Tigray region, where divisions in the ruling party have sparked fears of a renewed war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Fano militia fought alongside the army and Eritrean forces in a two-year civil war that pitted Addis Ababa against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the northern region of Tigray. Fighting between Ethiopia's army and Fano - a loose collection of militias with no centralised leadership - broke out in July 2023, fuelled in part by a sense of betrayal among many Amharas about the terms of the 2022 peace deal.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Thursday that his government would not seek conflict with longtime foe Eritrea over access to the Red Sea, after regional officials and experts warned of a possible war between the Horn of Africa neighbours.

The threat of war is looming over the Horn of Africa once again, with observers warning of a return to fighting in Tigray, which could also lead to conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

More than two years after a cessation of hostilities ended a brutal civil war, Ethiopia’s Tigray region should be well along the road to recovery. Instead, its ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front Party (TPLF) is embroiled in a bitter internal spat that has paralysed politics and sparked fears of fresh conflict. 

The leaders of Ethiopia’s Tigray region have called for the full implementation of the Pretoria agreement that ended the conflict between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray rebels in 2022.

[…] Some critical lessons learned include African ownership of the mediated process, strategic interactions, and the management of confidentiality, given the tremen-dous interest from the continent and the diaspora. 

Ethiopian army forces have deployed in large numbers in the past fortnight to Amhara state, the scene of a year-long insurgency … The Fano, a long-standing “self-defence” militia for the Amhara ethnic group, the second largest in Ethiopia, took up arms against the federal government in April 2023 after it tried to disarm regional forces.

The leader of Tigray People's Liberation Front Debretsion Gebremichael has reported previously undisclosed talks between his region and the leaders of Eritrea. Speaking at a press conference in the regional capital Mekelle, Ethiopia, on Tuesday, Debretsion said the first round of talks took place about six months ago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.