Ethiopia: Tigrayan forces control Mekele airport, fighting in neighboring Afar

The forces of the rebel authorities in Tigrayan state have taken control of the main airport in this northern Ethiopian state and have entered the neighboring Afar region where they are clashing with the federal army, raising fears of a new large-scale war.

A peace agreement signed in 2022 ended two years of an extremely deadly and destructive war between the federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which rules the Tigray fact.

But tensions have resurfaced in recent months between the federal government and the TPLF, which Addis Ababa removed from the list of authorized parties in Ethiopia in 2025 and accuses of illegitimately governing the regional state. Fighting had already broken out between Tigrayan and federal forces earlier this year, and Ethiopian drones have targeted Tigrayan forces about ten times since the beginning of August.

On Sunday, seven groups opposed to the federal government and active in various areas of the country, including the TPLF, the Amhara Fano militias and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), announced that they had joined forces to "overthrow" the executive branch in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Airlines, the national carrier and the only one operating domestic flights in Ethiopia, suspended its flights to and from Mekele, Axum and Shire on Wednesday "due to the current situation in Tigray," the three towns it serves in Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost regional state, bordering Eritrea and Sudan.

A humanitarian source in the Afar region, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that clashes had been taking place between "Tigrayan forces and the federal army since last night in Abala and Erebti," localities in the Afar region close to Tigray.

- "Crossed the Rubicon"

Abala "is believed to be in the hands" of Tigrayan forces, a foreign security source told AFP, referring to the town located in the mountains marking the border with Tigray. Erebti is situated further inland in the Afar region, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) by road from Abala.

A former senior leader – still influential – of the TPLF told AFP that Tigrayan forces had "liberated" several localities in the Afar region, including Abala and Erebti, and others nearby, asserting: "the ENDF (Ethiopian Federal Armed Forces) are retreating rapidly."

On Wednesday morning, an employee at Alula Aba Nega Airport in Mekele, who requested anonymity, reported being sent home. "We were told that the TDF (Tigrayan forces) had taken control of the airport," she stated, information confirmed by a foreign security source.

Mekele airport, the largest in the Tigrayan state, is normally guarded by a few federal soldiers, a rare visible presence of federal authorities in the state. According to the security source, Tigrayan forces have also taken control of the airports in Axum and Shire.

When contacted by AFP, neither the vice-president of the TPLF nor the spokesperson for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responded.

"The TPLF has crossed the Rubicon," Kjetil Tronvoll, a specialist on the region at Oslo New University College (Norway), told AFP, adding that he "sees no sign of de-escalation."

"The federal government will surely react" to this takeover of the airports "by intensifying air campaigns," Mr. Tronvoll continued.

- 600,000 dead -

The 2020-2022 war in Tigray was one of the deadliest conflicts in recent years worldwide, claiming at least 600,000 lives, according to an estimate by the African Union. It devastated Tigray economically and displaced more than one million of its six million inhabitants.

The TPLF took power in Ethiopia in 1991 and ruled the country for nearly three decades before being marginalized by Abiy Ahmed when he was appointed head of the federal executive in 2018.

In recent months, Mr. Abiy's government has accused the TPLF of forging closer ties with several armed groups from other regional states, as well as with neighbouring Eritrea.

This former Italian colony, gradually annexed by Ethiopia from 1952 onwards, and which gained independence in 1993 after three decades of war against Addis Ababa, has historically maintained very tense relations with its vast neighbor. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki sent the Eritrean army to support Mr. Abiy against the TPLF between 2020 and 2022, but relations between the two men subsequently deteriorated rapidly and severely.

Flights to and from Tigray had already been suspended for five days between late January and early February, when fighting broke out between federal and Tigrayan forces.