Northern Ethiopia Fighting Puts Pretoria Peace Agreement Under Severe Strain

Renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia is placing the 2022 Pretoria Agreement under severe strain, as clashes involving forces in Tigray, Afar and Amhara fuel fears of another civil war.

Ethiopia’s federal military said it was responding to the rising tensions with restraint. Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Berhanu Jula said the military was meeting what he described as provocations from the Tigray front with “wisdom and restraint”.

Jula also accused Eritrea of funding and supporting armed groups in an effort to weaken Ethiopia. Eritrea denied the allegations.

Clashes spread beyond Tigray

Fighting has extended from Tigray into neighbouring Afar and Amhara. Military operations were reported around Abala in Afar, where the Ethiopian army said it was seeking to prevent rebels from taking control.

The army also said it killed 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounded 260 during a counter-offensive in North Wollo. Those figures were claims by the Ethiopian military and were not independently verified.

Fighting continued around Sama, Soqota and Raya Alamata, while government forces were reportedly closing in on Alamata. The report did not identify an independent source for that assessment.

Seven armed groups have announced the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival. The alliance has said it is committed to removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

Jula referred to the alliance as “Tsimdo” and described it as part of a longstanding pattern of hostile alliances that, in his account, could not confront the state without external backing.

Competing accounts of the military campaign

The Tigray Army said the federal government had launched a “full-scale offensive” involving infantry, mechanised units and drones. Addisalem Balema, a central committee member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, described the situation as a “full war”.

The Tigray Army’s account of the offensive was not independently verified. The Ethiopian army command said it preferred “strategic calm” to a large-scale confrontation, arguing that the Tigray front’s popular support was declining and its leadership was divided.

Internet access was reportedly cut across northern Ethiopia on Friday. The party responsible for the outage and its duration were not identified.

The United Nations has expressed alarm over reports that drones were being used against civilians in northern Ethiopia. The available information does not independently confirm those reports.

Peace agreement faces renewed pressure

The Pretoria Agreement ended a two-year civil war in Tigray in 2022. The latest clashes have been described as the most serious challenge yet to the accord and could draw in armed groups from other parts of Ethiopia, raising concerns about a broader regional conflict.

Alemayehu Weldemariam, a professor of law at Indiana University, said the federal government bore much of the responsibility for the agreement’s collapse. He said Tigray had faced restrictions affecting fuel, public services and cash, and had been excluded from national elections since the agreement.

Weldemariam also said the promised interim administration had not been established as intended. “What was supposed to be an interim arrangement turned out to be permanent,” he said.

His assessment that the cessation-of-hostilities provisions were primarily undermined by the federal government remains an attributed analysis rather than an independently established finding.

The renewed tensions are also unfolding amid wider regional concerns. Eritrea has been described as wary that landlocked Ethiopia could seek access to the Red Sea through an invasion. Washington recently lifted sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea linked to atrocities from the previous war, saying the “national emergency … has expired”. Ethiopia’s president has also addressed the United Nations General Assembly, presenting the country as a force for regional stability.