Four years ago, a peace agreement ended one of the deadliest conflicts of this century, the Tigray War in northern Ethiopia. Fighting between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a political party and armed rebel movement controlling the northern Tigray region, claimed 600,000 lives and displaced over 5 million people. Now that conflict has reignited – and with it, fears that fighting could spread across the Horn of Africa.
Last week, forces belonging to the TPLF seized three airports and attacked the states of Afar and Amhara, located in northern Ethiopia. The offensive came days after the TPLF joined six other armed rebel groups in forming the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival (EPFAS), which seeks to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.
In response, Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to the Tigray region, and the Ethiopian military claims it killed, wounded, or captured more than 500 rebel fighters. The TPLF’s vice president, Amanuel Assefa, declared the region to be in a state of “full-blown war.” The question now is whether the fighting will remain Ethiopian or ignite a wider conflict, drawing in other regional players.
The origins of the conflict. The Tigray War grew out of a political rupture between Abiy and the TPLF, the party which had dominated Ethiopian politics for thirty years before Abiy came to power in 2018. Abiy sought to reduce ethnic tensions by unifying different Ethiopian parties into his “Prosperity Party,” but the TPLF refused to join, fearing a loss of influence. In 2020, Abiy delayed national elections because of the COVID-19 pandemic, angering Tigrayan officials who saw this as an authoritarian tactic to hold onto power.
In response, Tigrayan officials defied the federal government and held their own regional vote. Tigrayan forces then attacked a federal military base in the region, purportedly to steal weapons, prompting a military retaliation from Addis Ababa, which drew in neighboring Eritrea, whose relationship with the TPLF had soured in a 1998 border war. Fighting ended with the 2022 Pretoria Agreement between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF, which allowed the TPLF to remain a major political force in Tigray.
But alliances that shaped the war have since shifted. Eritrea, despite supporting Ethiopia during the conflict, resented being excluded from the Pretoria Agreement. Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea further deteriorated after Abiy began publicly asserting landlocked Ethiopia’s right to ocean access – rhetoric viewed with alarm in Eritrea, which controls strategically important ports on the Red Sea, including that of Assab, to which Ethiopia claims a historical right of access. Addis Ababa now accuses Eritrea of financing EPFAS, which Eritrea denies.
The regional dominoes that threaten to fall. Could a wider war break out? Some experts believe the conflict could potentially draw in Sudanese forces, currently fighting a bloody civil war, and produce a chain reaction, drawing in states in the region and even in the Middle East. For example, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are aligned with opposing sides in Sudan and have relationships across the Horn of Africa with states including Ethiopia and Somalia. Ethiopia’s relationship with Egypt is also a potential flashpoint: the two countries rival each other over access to the Nile, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and regional influence.
But Amaka Anku, Eurasia Group’s Africa expert, said this scenario overstates the capabilities and incentives of the players involved.
Anku argues that unlike during the Tigray War, “the central government is much stronger and TPLF is much weaker.” Since signing the Pretoria Agreement, Addis Ababa has consolidated power and acquired more military equipment, including drones. The TPLF, meanwhile, needs allies to fight its battles and may be attempting to provoke an Ethiopian government overreaction that generates greater outside support, Anku said. But that may not come: Ethiopia possesses far larger armed forces than Eritrea, making it unlikely to risk a preemptive strike that could give Abiy a pretext to attack Eritrea directly.
Anku applies the same caution to Sudan. Tigrayan fighters are accused of supporting forces aligned with the Sudanese government, while Addis Ababa worries about cooperation between Sudan and the TPLF. But Anku describes those relationships as loose and transactional, not a formal military alliance. She considers a Sudanese army intervention against Ethiopia that triggers a full-scale conflict “very unlikely.”
Interconnected conflicts, but not yet a regional war. The Horn’s conflicts are intertwined, with armed groups, governments and outside powers supporting one another’s enemies for immediate strategic interests. But they don’t amount to a single regional war – at least not yet.
For now, the greater risk is less a grand conflagration than continuing flare-ups of recurring violence, Anku said. But with the Pretoria Agreement fraying, Ethiopia and Eritrea estranged, and Sudan already at war, there are more pathways for escalation – even if, as Anku argued, few of the players have the capacity or the incentive to take them.
