Just four years after a landmark peace deal officially halted the devastating Tigray war, fighting has escalated once again in northern EthiopiaĀ in recent weeks.Ā
Just days before full-scale fighting resumed, several armed groups which had previously considered each enemies formally announced an alliance withĀ a common goal: To bring down Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal government.
But this time, the layĀ of the land looks quite different from the previous conflict: Parties outside the country have been accused of meddling in the situation, with each having their own motives to want to destabilize Abiy’s government.
This has raised fears aboutĀ prolonged instability hitting the Horn of Africa.
Reasons for the collapse of theĀ peace deal
The 2022 Pretoria Peace AgreementĀ ended theĀ conflict between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the course of two years.
Negash Mohammed, a journalist with DW’s Amharic department. believesĀ that theĀ dealĀ collapsed for three key reasons ā or rather because three key actors in the conflict were largely neglected at the negotiation table.
Mohammed explained that the ultimate agreementĀ didn’t factor in the role ofĀ Eritrea in the conflict, which had foughtĀ alongside Ethiopia against the TPLF; it ignored the part that Amhara militias āĀ known as Fano āĀ played in the war, who later felt sorely excluded from the negotiations; finally, it ignored harliners within the TPLF who viewed theĀ peace peace as nothing but military defeat.
Tensions between the federal government and the Fano escalated further when Addis Ababa moved to forcibly disarm theĀ militias instead of addressing their grievances.
“The federal government hasĀ its own shortcomings,” said Mohammed. “Instead of convincing the other side, it went on to aggravate the grievancesĀ they [already] had.”
An alliance of former enemies
Mohammed also emphasizedĀ the fact thatĀ thisĀ coalition against the federal government includes several groups which have otherwise little to do with each other.
It includes the Oromo Liberation Army, a faction of the Ogaden National Liberation Front as well asĀ multiple smallerĀ armed groups from the western Benishangul-Gumuz region āĀ in addition toĀ ethnic militant factions from Afar, which borders Tigray.
Eritrea meanwhile appears to have shifted sides in the current situation:Ā While notĀ officially a member of the alliance, the neighboring country is believed to be providingĀ support to the rebels.
Patricia Rodrigues, a senior analyst at Control Risks, a globalĀ intelligence and security consultancy, referred to the level of strategicĀ coordination among these various groups in the current conflict as “quite significant” and “definitely alarming for the federal government.”
She noted, however, that cracks might eventually appear: “How long this coalition lasts, because all of them have very different interests and represent very different ethnic constituencies, remains to be seen,” she told DW.
Rodrigues added that, based on Control Risks’ assessment, the fighting is likely to remainĀ limited toĀ Ethiopia’s northern regions, particularly those situated along the borders between Tigray, Amhara, and Afar.Ā
Furthermore, she highlighted that the idea of itĀ spreading across the entire country was rather unlikelyĀ due to the difficulty of nationwide coordination, taking into consideration the rough terrain of the nation and the fragmentation of other opposition groups.
Could the conflict have been prevented?
Rodrigues also pointedĀ out the failure of sustained international engagement after the end of the crisis in 2022 as a key reason for the current conflict_
She notedĀ that while the Pretoria agreementĀ saw some early proof of implementation ā including the TPLF’s surrender of heavy weaponry in 2022 and 2023 ā international attention had soon shifted to other global crises, leaving both sides free to quietly rearm and conscript supporters.
“It was more of a stopgap or a ceasefire, but people were quickly rearming in the background,” she told DW.
Rodrigues also noted that the United States had recently lifted sanctions imposed during the 2020ā2022 conflictĀ āĀ a step which, according to Mohammed, diminishes the West’s leverage in the conflict to pushĀ combatants toward coming to the negotiationĀ table.
The real cost of war
In the meantime, civilians are bearing the cost of the warring parties:Ā People caught up in the crossfire have been fleeing the conflict once more, adding further to a population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) that has not recovered from the previous war.
“Since 2020, theyĀ have not returned to their areas. They are still in makeshift IDP centers,” MohammedĀ said, adding that there haveĀ also been isolated reports of drone strikes hitting civilian areas and of rebel groups deploying military hardware inside schools and clinics.
Telephone and internet connections have also been cut in parts of Tigray and Amhara, electricity has been disrupted, and flights have been suspended to several cities including Kombolcha and Lalibela.
Despite official assurances from all parties that civilians wouldĀ be protected, Mohammed says that the reality on the ground tells a different story: “Words and practice are very contradictory.”
Limited prospects for mediation
Mohammed also noted thatĀ outgoingĀ UN Secretary-GeneralĀ AntĆ³nio GuterresĀ dispatched a special envoy to the Horn of Africa, charged with mediating between the African Union, regional powers, and Egypt ā many of the same parties involved in brokering the Pretoria agreement.
HoweverĀ according to Mohammed,Ā meaningful negotiations are unlikely to bear fruit until at least one of the sides involved in the conflict “comes to understand that this violence will not help them to achieve what they want.”
Rodrigues agrees, stressing that she cannot beĀ optimistic aboutĀ “an international or a regional mediation being the solution to the current fighting,” adding thatĀ “intense, but geographically contained” fighting will continueĀ for the foreseeable future.
Adapted from the AfricaLink Podcast by Silja Frƶhlich
Edited by: Sertan Sanderson