- Lead. Ethiopian federal forces and allied Tigray Peace Force fighters took Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, on 4 October after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front withdrew, calling it a tactical move to prevent further destruction.
- Fact. The offensive began on 23 September when seven armed and political groups announced an alliance against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, collapsing the November 2022 Pretoria peace accord.
- Stake. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the rebel coalition — all three deny it — raising the risk of wider regional spillover as diplomatic ties between Addis Ababa and Asmara have now been severed.
Federal troops and allied fighters entered Mekelle on Saturday morning without a fight, according to Al Jazeera, as TPLF leaders and fighters abandoned the city hours earlier. The TPLF confirmed the withdrawal in a statement, calling it a deliberate decision to prevent destruction while pledging that its forces would keep fighting from other positions. Reuters sources confirmed federal control of the city the following day.
A Broken Peace and a New Front
The renewed fighting marks the collapse of a fragile arrangement that had held since November 2022, when African Union mediators brokered the Pretoria agreement to end a conflict that, by many estimates, killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions more. In July 2026, the TPLF declared the accord effectively defunct; the federal government rejected that characterisation. The September offensive brought together a seven-group alliance — Oromo, Amhara and Tigrayan factions who disagree on many issues but share opposition to Abiy’s centralising policies.
When the TPLF seized three airports earlier this month, the speed of the rebel advance surprised many analysts and demonstrated that Tigrayan forces had rebuilt significant military capacity since the 2022 ceasefire. The federal advance on Mekelle appeared to reverse those gains within days.
Regional Dimension Grows
Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of deploying forces inside Tigray in support of the rebel coalition — an accusation Eritrea denies. After Addis Ababa closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled Eritrean diplomats, Asmara severed diplomatic relations in return. Earlier drone strikes on Addis Ababa, attributed to the coalition, had already sharpened the tone between the two countries. Ethiopia has similarly pointed to Sudanese and Egyptian backing for the rebel groups; both deny it, though the accusations reflect longstanding rivalries over the Nile, border demarcations and regional influence.
Al Jazeera analysis from 9 October suggested that Mekelle’s capture may mark the end of conventional, city-to-city warfare rather than the end of the conflict itself — with the risk that fighting splinters into a protracted insurgency, as it did in the 2020–22 war. Federal police began patrolling the city and asked residents to help restore order, but municipal offices remained shut and regional broadcast networks dark more than five days after the entry.
What Comes Next
Abraham Belay, the former president of the Tigray Interim Administration, said preparations were underway to install a new transitional administration in Mekelle, with local elections planned within months and governance structures to be built from the kebele level upward. For residents already living through a second round of war, the promises carried limited comfort. “I feel very heartbroken knowing that Tigray has gone back to full-scale war,” Berihu, a bajaj driver in Shire, told reporters. Analysts tracking the situation noted that the same geographic and logistical factors that allowed the TPLF to hold Mekelle in 2020–21 still exist — meaning any new administration will face both a security vacuum and a humanitarian emergency.