Which parties oppose each other?
In the Tigray region, located in the mountainous northwest of Ethiopia, the federal Ethiopian army is fighting alongside ethnic militias and troops from neighboring Eritrea with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The federal army is directed by the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the TPLF is led by Debretsion Gebremichael.
The TPLF is a party founded in the 1970s, partly to fight against the Derg regime, which had turned Ethiopia into a Marxist military dictatorship. In 1991, several armed groups, including the TPLF, moved towards the capital Addis Ababa, after which the leader of the Derg fled. The Tigreeans came to power and ruled with an iron fist for 27 years.
The fact that a party from one region ruled the entire country (Tigrees made up only 6 percent of the population) did not sit well with many Ethiopians, to say the least. Protests broke out in 2014 in the populous Amhara and Oromia regions. Although the government tried to suppress the demonstrations and the associated political parties, a political turnaround took place in 2018. Abiy Ahmed, himself half Oromo and half Amharic, came to power.
Ahmed comes from the ranks of the TPLF, although he himself is not a Tigrean: as a 14-year-old child soldier he fought with the Tigrese resistance against the Derg regime. He later served as Minister of Science and Technology for another year.
How did the conflict arise?
Soon after taking office as prime minister, Ahmed introduced radical political reforms, which did not go down well with his former colleagues. He released thousands of political prisoners, appointed many female ministers and made peace with Eritrea after twenty years of war. For the latter, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
Since then, relations between the federal government and the Tigrees have been bad. For example, after taking office in 2018, the prime minister dismissed several Tigre leaders who held important posts in the federal government. The Tigreeans therefore no longer wanted to cooperate with the government.
In September 2020, the conflict escalated further when the Tigrees held regional elections against the will of the government. Ahmed had postponed the polls across the country due to the corona pandemic. The prime minister decided to respond to the ‘illegal’ election by no longer paying money to the regional government. This move was seen by the TPLF as a declaration of war.
How is the war going?
On the morning of November 4, 2020, the battle began with a – according to the Tigrees pre-emptive – attack on a military base of the federal Ethiopian army in Tigray. The Ethiopian army then decided to launch a counter-offensive.
The federal army is supported by ethnic militias and troops from neighboring Eritrea. The Tigreeans defend themselves with a militia that calls itself the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF). Due to the decades-long war with Eritrea, there are many weapons in the region. With attacks on ammunition depots and army bases, the TDF has captured an extensive arsenal of weapons.
The battle escalated a year after the start of the war, on November 2, 2021, when the TPLF formed an alliance with other rebel groups in Ethiopia. Together they marched to Addis Ababa to depose Ahmed, after which the prime minister decided to declare a state of emergency. However, the Tigrean troops never reached the Ethiopian capital due to a counter-offensive by the federal army. Iranian and Turkish combat drones were of vital importance. Those drones are still an important asset of Abiy Ahmed, although these unmanned air strikes regularly cause civilian casualties.
What do civilians notice of the battle?
The blockade of Tigray has a major impact on daily life in the region. Since the outbreak of fighting, the Ethiopian government has largely cut off the area from the world, leaving more than 5 million people without basic services such as electricity, internet, telephone, food and medicine.
Numerous human rights violations, such as massacres, rapes and ethnic cleansing, have also been reported in the bloody fighting. According to the United Nations, both warring parties are guilty of committing “extreme atrocities”.
Researchers at the University of Ghent estimate that between 380 and 600 thousand civilians have died since November 2020. 30 to 90 thousand of them have died in direct attacks such as bombings, the rest is due to a shortage of food and a lack of medication. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced since 2020.
What do the warring parties want?
The Tigrees want control of their own region. They demand that the Ethiopian troops withdraw and that the TDF troops be recognized as a regional security service. The federal government wants the opposite: the military must take control of the region. In addition, the government wants to see TPLF leaders behind bars.
Why is Eritrea involved in the struggle?
For decades, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought over the border area between the two countries. Much of that disputed territory was near the northwestern Tigray region. The TPLF reacted furiously to the peace deal signed in 2019. At the same time, the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia improved. When Prime Minister Ahmed went to war against the Tigrese state administrators, he could therefore count on help from his new ally. And so Tigray is attacked from both the south and the north.
When will the conflict end?
At the initiative of, among others, the African Union, a ceasefire was announced in November, after more than a week of intensive negotiations. It is an ambitious agreement: one of the aims is to disarm the Tigre army. In the short term it will also be possible to send relief supplies to the war zone.
Whether the ceasefire will result in a peace agreement remains to be seen. It also came to a ceasefire in March 2022, but that pause in combat was broken at the end of August. The details will have to be worked out in a series of fraught peace talks in the coming weeks.