Federal forces captured Mekelle earlier this month, marking a return to conflict as the TPLF and the national government resumed hostilities following the 2022 Pretoria agreement.
Managing a beauty parlor in Mekelle, the administrative hub of Ethiopia’s troubled northern Tigray region, presents significant daily challenges at present. “People can't prioritise beauty over daily basic needs. For many residents, thinking about self-care is a luxury, at a time when they can't feed their kids,” Firut Me'ar, who runs a salon in the city, told the BBC.
Fighting broke out in late September between the Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that had run Tigray for decades, and the national army. This marked a direct resumption of the two-year civil war that officially ended in 2022.
Federal Capture of Mekelle
When Ethiopian army troops captured the city earlier this month from rebel forces, they received a surprising reaction from many residents: a palpable sense of relief, The Christian Science Monitor reported. In 2021, the same government troops were routed from the same city and seen as invaders.
The Prime Minister’s Office made public the creation of a six-month interim administration for Tigray on Friday. In parallel, the national military is pushing forward alongside the Tigray Peace Force, a coalition of ex-TPLF fighters currently allied with the government in Addis Ababa.
Collapse of the Pretoria Agreement
A peace agreement silenced the guns, but never evolved into a comprehensive political settlement, and underlying issues were left unaddressed.
For 27 years, the TPLF was the ruling party in Ethiopia. Following the removal of the TPLF from power in 2018, immediate friction arose with the incoming administration led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The year 2020 saw these growing grievances explode into a civil war that claimed a minimum of 100,000 lives within two years, with certain projections climbing past the half-million mark.
An accord to halt hostilities was signed by the TPLF and the Ethiopian administration in Pretoria, South Africa, back in 2022. Under the terms, Tigrayan combatants consented to lay down their weapons, while the central government pledged to reinstate essential utilities, facilitate the repatriation of displaced citizens to the area, and guarantee the withdrawal of Eritrean troops—who had fought alongside state forces—from Tigrayan soil.
Yet, the agreement fell short of securing the right for Tigrayans to choose their own local administration, a privilege held by other regional states across Ethiopia. Meanwhile, both Eritrea and the Amhara region’s Fano militia—factions that had aided the government—were deeply offended by their exclusion from the negotiation table.
Alliances Splinter as Territorial and Maritime Disputes Grow
As a result, that alliance quickly splintered. Amhara’s Fano and allied militia units declined to relinquish the territories in western Tigray that they had seized by force during the conflict. Relationships between Asmara and Addis Ababa also eroded further over Mr. Abiy’s push for landlocked Ethiopia to have access to the Red Sea via Eritrea’s coastline.
At the same time, the TPLF itself was fracturing. Interim leaders appointed by Mr. Abiy’s government stood on one side, while a hardline faction saw cooperation with Addis Ababa as betrayal. Because the two factions could not agree to convene a party conference, the federal authorities disqualified the TPLF from participating in the 2026 ballot.
The Fano publicly declared on Sept. 21 that it had entered into a coalition with its former adversary, the TPLF, along with five additional regional rebel factions with the shared objective of deposing the central administration. Two days later, Tigrayan troops launched an offensive against federal forces in Tigray and the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.
Reports from outlets such as Reuters, the AFP, and the ACLED conflict monitoring organization indicate that Eritrean military personnel have crossed the frontier into Tigray. The administration in Asmara refutes claims that it has stationed troops there, arguing that Ethiopia is exploiting the situation as a pretext for a future military assault against Eritrea.
Internal Fragmentation and Future Outlook
Cameroon Hudson, an analyst and consultant on African peace and security, points to several reasons for the TPLF’s rapid defeat.
“The TPLF has lost popular support at home. It is fragmented, it does not possess the advanced military technology necessary to match the ENDF [Ethiopian National Defence Forces],” analyst and consultant on African peace and security Cameroon Hudson said.
Abraha Hailezgi, a scholar at Mekelle University, shares a similar assessment of the regional forces.
Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, TPLF spokesperson Mikael Asgedom denies that the group has lost, describing the maneuver instead as a deliberate tactical and strategic retreat.
This is not a defeat.
Mikael Asgedom, TPLF spokesperson
Getachew Reda—a former high-ranking TPLF figure who changed loyalties to serve as an adviser to the premier—stated that the conflict in Tigray had concluded and emphasized that regional stabilization ought to be the immediate focus.
Other residents emphasize the persistent void in political planning.
There seems to be no road map moving forward… Nobody has clearly articulated what is going to be built on what has been discarded.
