More and more Tigrayans to flee north Ethiopia...

 

Following up on the sitaution in Ethiopia: 

Fears of renewed conflict drive more and more Tigrayans to flee north Ethiopia

While war rages in much of South West Asia, across the waters of the Red Sea, another conflict has been looming in the Horn of Africa for weeks: in Ethiopia's Tigray region. These past few days, more people have started to feel the regional capital fearing an open war, as the memory of the 2020/22 still haunts the region. 

Photo: AFP

Federal and Tigrayan forces are once again massing at their shared border in northern Ethiopia, as they did in January.

The last civil war in 2022 ended with a peace agreement that was never properly implemented, and after a few months, the relations between the regional and federal authorities have become highly volatile, while Ethiopia's ties with Eritrea, which borders Tigray, also worsened.

Since October 2025, the Ethiopian government has denounced "a clear collusion between the Eritrean government and the TPLF", with a view to a new war coming.

Amid this escalation, hundreds are now fleeing Tigray, a region populated by around six million people before the war, every day by bus or plane, even if it is difficult to estimate the exact numbers.

"Right now, the situation in Tigray is very tense, we hear a lot of things, but all we want is peace," a Tigrayan named Biruk told RFI's special correspondent sent to Makelle, the regional capital.

Verbal escalations and international divisions

The federal and Tigrayan administrations blame each other for the rising tensions.

"The federal troops are advancing" from all corners of Ethiopia. Amanuel Assefa, second-in-command of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), long the dominant party in the region, told AFP last week.

"And I can say that Tigray is being encircled by federal troops. The highly likely scenario seems that there will be a conflict," he added.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed keeps saying he does not want war, as he said again in a speech unusually delivered in Tigrinya, the language of Tigray, last week. But he also said the TPLF "wasn't ready to make even a small compromise".

Since 2023, the TPLF has also been divided.

Kinfe Hadush, the chairman of the opposition Sawet party, told RFI that, “wince Abiy came to power, Tigrayans feel more vulnerable. Today, not only does the TPLF no longer represent the interests of all of Tigray, but it also has no specific agenda. The TPLF just wants to mobilise the population for war. But the people are resisting; they don't want to participate in this war.”

The TPLF is facing internal problems and its popularity is declining, many observers told RFI.

“I acknowledge that the TPLF has many problems to solve," TPLF Vice President Amanuel Assefa told RFI. "But I can’t say that the party has the same support as it used to. If the TPLF was not accepted by all people, it would be overthrown, and another party would take power. But that’s not the case."

It's the federal government that is conspiring to dismantle the party by any means necessary, he asserted.

On the run

"There's nobody left here," Abel (a changed name to protect his identity) 
told AFP in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, as he himself tried to join other displaced people only to find buses full.

Most nights dozens of young men with backpacks and suitcases are seen at the bus station, looking for a means to leave, and hopefully reach the federal capital, Addis Ababa.

Some 700-kilometre separate Mekelle from Addis, one of the few areas of Ethiopia still at peace.

Abel is 23, and had fought for the Tigrayan Defence Forces during the civil war of 2020-22, opposing the rebels to the federal government.

The conflict killed at least 600,000 people.

He worries a renewed conflict is imminent. "It's not safe here anymore," Abel said. "I saw people die. I don't want to relive that; I don't want the war to catch up with me again."

In the whole of Tigray, people are facing shortages of basic products, from petrol to food. 

As federal authorities have cut subsidies to the region for months, even civil servants are no longer paid, and banks are running out of cash. 

 (with AFP, and partially adapted from this report in French)

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Read also my recent pieces on the situation in Ethiopia, Tigray and Eritrea:

*Widening rift between Eritrea and Ethiopia sparks fear of new conflict

*A year after the ceasefire in Tigray, Ethiopia is little closer to peace

*As Tigray clashes intensify, locals stockpile food and airline cancels flights