Fighting Intensifies in Northern Ethiopia as Rival Forces Claim Strategic Towns

Fighting has intensified across northern Ethiopia as federal government forces and their allies confront the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and associated groups in Tigray, Afar and Amhara.

The Tigray Peace Force said its fighters captured Alamata alongside the national army. Reuters-verified video showed soldiers carrying Ethiopian flags in the strategic town, while two diplomatic sources told Reuters that Alamata had fallen. A source linked to opposition forces reportedly said its fighters were retreating.

Alamata lies about 120km south of Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, and serves as a supply point for troops, fuel and food. Its reported capture could give federal forces and their allies a route for a northward advance, although the extent of any movement toward Mekelle remains unclear.

An unnamed military source told Al Jazeera that government forces were advancing toward, or surrounding, Mekelle. That account has not been independently confirmed.

Competing battlefield claims

The latest developments follow a major offensive by Tigrayan rebel forces, who reportedly seized three airports in Tigray before pushing into neighbouring Afar and Amhara. Federal forces and their allies later launched a counterattack.

In Afar, an Ethiopian commander who spoke anonymously to The Associated Press said Erebti had fallen to TPLF forces. The Tigray Peace Force also acknowledged the capture, while disputing reports that it followed intense fighting.

The TPLF has described its campaign as a “defensive war” and accused federal forces of using drones and heavy artillery. The source material does not independently confirm all battlefield claims.

The Ethiopian military said 270 Tigrayan fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded around North Wollo. Those figures are military claims and were not independently verified.

Regional concerns and communications outages

Reports from Afar have also raised concerns about the conflict’s regional dimensions. Taha Tawakul reported allegations from the Afar governor that Eritrean forces were involved in the fighting, controlled more than two-thirds of Afar and were moving to cut the road linking Djibouti and Eritrea.

That road is strategically important because most of Ethiopia’s imports, including fuel, pass through Djibouti. Ethiopia’s army chief, Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, also accused Eritrea of supporting opposition forces and alleged that Sudan and Egypt were providing backing.

Eritrea and Sudan denied the allegations. Sudan’s government described the accusations as “baseless and unfounded” and said they lacked any “foundation or evidence”. Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nader Zaki, said the country respected the “sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of states”.

Communications have been disrupted in Tigray, where internet and telephone networks have been affected. Tigrai TV’s headquarters was also hit by a drone, according to the reported account.

Growing humanitarian pressure

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported a sharp increase in wounded patients in northern Ethiopia. The number of patients at hospitals in Korem and Alamata rose from about 180 to more than 420 over 48 hours, while MSF said 300 wounded people arrived at Suhul Hospital during the previous week.

Valerie Browning, cofounder of the Afar Pastoralist Development Association, estimated that about 150,000 people had been displaced since the latest fighting began.

The renewed hostilities have further strained the fragile Pretoria Agreement, signed in November 2022 after a conflict that ran from 2020 to 2022 and reportedly killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president and African Union mediator, estimated that about 600,000 people died during that war.

Before the latest offensive, the TPLF joined six other armed groups to form the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival. The alliance, which includes the Oromo Liberation Army and the Amhara Fano National Movement, said it wanted to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and establish a transitional administration.