KAMPALA, Uganda—Secessionist rebels in Ethiopia’s north have shattered a four-year truce with government forces, seizing three airports and returning the East African nation to civil war.
The outbreak of fighting in Ethiopia, a country of 140 million people, adds yet another layer of volatility to the explosive—and economically critical—region that stretches from the Horn of Africa, across the Red Sea and Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf and Iran.
The truce between Ethiopian government forces and rebels in the independence-minded Tigray region had mostly held since the two sides fought to a stalemate from 2020 to 2022, with 600,000 killed. Analysts fear that neighboring Eritrea, which fought a 30-year war of independence against Ethiopia and is one of the world’s most-reclusive and repressive regimes, will now enter the fray on the side of the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
“Conflict in Tigray has a strong potential to spread regionally,” said Edward Bach, senior Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a U.K.-based risk intelligence firm.
Tigrayan infantry, backed by tanks and artillery, seized the airport in the regional capital, Mekelle, this week, as well as airfields in the towns of Axum and Shire near the border with Eritrea, ejecting central-government troops and police, Tigrayan and Ethiopian officials said.
A member of the Tigrayan forces walks along a street as tensions intensify after the forces launched a major offensive against the federal government in multiple locations, in Mekelle, Tigray Region, Ethiopia, September 24, 2026. Obtained by REUTERS
The rebels also clashed with government troops in neighboring Afar, in the sharpest escalation of hostilities since the end of the devastating civil war.
“They have been targeting government positions in the Afar region from three directions,” an Ethiopian official said.
Ethiopian Airlines, a major African carrier with a hub in capital, Addis Ababa, said it had suspended flights to Tigray.
Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia—allies during the civil war—have since frayed, with Eritrea complaining it had been sidelined in the truce between Ethiopians and the Tigrayans.
When Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, Ethiopia lost its only access to the Red Sea, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hinted that he is willing to take it back by force .
In a letter to the United Nations secretary-general last year, Ethiopia’s foreign minister, Gedion Timothewos, accused Eritrea of arming and funding Tigrayan rebels.
Bach, the analyst, says such alleged arms transfers are “increasing the risk of an escalating multistate conflict that could destabilize the Horn of Africa.”
Eritrean authorities denied the accusations.
Tigray’s regional administration said its fighters were responding to drone strikes and other attacks by the government forces. An Ethiopian government spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, Ervin Massinga, called the Tigrayan military move a “poor decision” and unwinnable. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged the two sides to take steps to avoid “a broader and more devastating conflict.”
The latest escalation caps months of tensions, including a weekend announcement that Tigrayan forces had joined six other rebel groups from different parts of the country with the aim of overthrowing Abiy’s government.
“Our army is engaged in a major defensive battle, based on instructions from the government of Tigray, to repel a renewed genocidal invasion,” the regional government said.
Ethiopian forces have carried out a series of drone strikes in recent months targeting Tigrayan forces in Mekelle, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, a U.S.-based conflict-monitoring nonprofit.
While the loss of airports may hamper the central government’s ability to resupply its forces, analysts say Abiy is in a tactically stronger position than he was in 2020, boosted by a stockpile of armed drones and other weapons.
Washington, already a strong security ally to Addis Ababa, has been also seeking to restore relations with Eritrea . Eritrea has a 700-mile Red Sea coastline across from Yemen, where Houthi rebels have been attacking Saudi Arabia and a globally critical shipping route through the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
“Ethiopia and Eritrea both pledged to set aside their differences and work together to strengthen regional peace and stability,” U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks , the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said this week. “Recent actions, including this weekend’s fighting, suggest more of the same shortsighted brinkmanship that has left northern Ethiopia mired in conflict.”
