Tigray Authorities Condemn Ethiopian Army Drone Strikes as ‘Serious Escalation’

Tigray rebel authorities have accused the Ethiopian federal government of carrying out deadly drone strikes in southern Tigray, condemning the operations as “a serious escalation” amid fears of a return to open war in the country’s north.

According to AllAfrica, citing RFI, authorities aligned with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the strikes were carried out on Tuesday in the southern part of the region. They characterised the attacks as a deliberate intensification of the military campaign against Tigrayan communities, in violation of understandings reached between the warring parties in earlier negotiations.

Background to the conflict

The Tigray war began in November 2020, when federal forces, joined by Eritrean troops and Amhara regional militias, launched operations against the TPLF after a political breakdown with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government in Addis Ababa. The two-year conflict killed thousands, displaced millions and triggered a severe humanitarian emergency, before the parties signed a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) in Pretoria in November 2022. The deal paused major combat but left key issues unresolved, including the status of contested western and southern Tigray areas.

Since the ceasefire, intermittent skirmishes along the front lines have fuelled concerns that the truce could unravel. International partners and African Union mediators have worked to keep the political process on track, while humanitarian access to parts of Tigray has slowly improved, though aid organisations continue to describe the situation as fragile.

Any confirmed return to sustained hostilities would carry significant humanitarian consequences for a population that has only begun to recover from the earlier war, and would complicate regional diplomacy at a time when Horn of Africa governments are also grappling with instability in neighbouring Sudan and Somalia.

Sources

This report was written from coverage published by the following news organisations. Follow the links for the original reporting.

• AllAfrica — Ethiopia: Rebel Forces in Ethiopia's Tigray State Condemn Army Drone Strikes
• RFI — Rebel forces in Ethiopia's Tigray state condemn army drone strikes
• inkl — Rebel forces in Ethiopia's Tigray state condemn army drone strikes
• Al Jazeera — Drone strikes power station near Libya’s largest oil refinery