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Tigray
Ethiopia's northern highland region, back at war in 2026 four years after the Pretoria peace deal
Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost region, is an ancient highland at the core of Ethiopian history and, since 2020, the setting of one of the century's deadliest wars. The 2020–2022 conflict pitted federal forces, allied with Eritrea and Amhara forces, against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and killed several hundred thousand people, about 600,000 by the estimate of African Union mediator Olusegun Obasanjo, before the Pretoria agreement of November 2022 ended it. That peace unraveled through 2025 and 2026. In September 2026 TPLF-led forces launched an offensive with allied armed groups, the federal army counterattacked and took Mekelle in early October, and on 16 October Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a six-month federal interim government for the region.
Tigray covers about 50,000 square kilometers of high plateau, flat-topped mountains called ambas, and deep gorges cut by the Tekezé River, bordering Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west and the Afar lowlands to the east. Most of its roughly six to seven million people farm terraced slopes around Mekelle, Adigrat, Adwa, Axum and Shire. Since 2020 Western Tigray, which Amhara call Welkait, has been run by Amhara regional authorities and is claimed by both regions. As of mid-October 2026, federal forces and the allied Tigray Peace Force hold Mekelle, Adigrat, Wukro and Adwa, while TPLF-aligned fighters remain in parts of the region. Eritrean troops reportedly crossed into the northeast in early October and withdrew after Ethiopian drone strikes, according to Reuters and Al Jazeera.
Axum, seat of an ancient kingdom and a holy city of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, lies in Tigray, and the TPLF led the coalition that ruled Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018. After Pretoria an interim administration governed the region, led first by Getachew Reda and from April 2025 by Lieutenant General Tadesse Werede, while a TPLF faction under Debretsion Gebremichael asserted its own authority. The TPLF declared the agreement effectively dead in 2026. Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, allies in 2020, collapsed over Abiy's calls for Red Sea access, which Asmara reads as a threat to its port of Assab, and Eritrea cut diplomatic ties on 1 October 2026. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing the TPLF, which Eritrea denies. Many people displaced by the first war had never returned home.