The Tigray War
A civil war fought in Ethiopia's Tigray Region from November 2020 to November 2022 between the federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, drawing in Eritrea and Amhara forces. One of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century, it ended with the Pretoria peace agreement.
Events
Tigray Defies the Federal Government
Tigray's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), held regional elections on September 9, 2020, in open defiance of the federal government's decision to postpone all elections citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The TPLF argued the federal postponement left Tigray without a legitimate government and that Abiy Ahmed's mandate had expired. The federal government declared the vote illegal, and both sides escalated rhetoric through the autumn.
Location: Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia
The Northern Command Attack and the Outbreak of War
In the early hours of November 4, 2020, the TPLF attacked the federal army's Northern Command headquarters in Mekelle, calling it a preemptive strike against an impending federal assault. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a "law enforcement operation" in response, and federal airstrikes on Tigray began the same day. Eritrean troops and Amhara regional forces later joined the federal side, while the TPLF mobilized its regional forces.
Location: Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia
The Fall of Mekelle and the Mai Kadra Massacre
Federal forces captured Mekelle on November 28, 2020, and the government declared the operation complete, though fighting continued. Days earlier, at Mai Kadra in western Tigray, hundreds of civilians, mostly Amhara, were massacred; later documented atrocities against Tigrayan civilians, including the Axum massacre attributed to Eritrean forces, followed as the war's pattern of mass killings of civilians emerged.
Location: Mekelle and Mai Kadra, Ethiopia
Sanctions and the Aid Crisis
As reports mounted of widespread atrocities, including rape used systematically and an effective blockade of humanitarian aid to Tigray, the United States imposed sanctions on Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 2021 and restricted economic and security assistance. Ethiopia expelled seven USAID officials in September 2021, calling them meddlers, and UN famine projections later that year warned of hundreds of thousands facing starvation conditions.
Location: Washington, D.C., USA
Tigrayan Forces Retake Mekelle
Tigrayan forces recaptured Mekelle in late June 2021 as the federal government declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew, calling the move a strategic retreat. The TPLF then pushed beyond Tigray's borders, and by late 2021 its forces had advanced south into Amhara and Afar regions, coming within roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) of the capital Addis Ababa before a drone-backed federal counteroffensive reversed the gains.
Location: Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia
The Humanitarian Truce
On March 24, 2022, the federal government declared an indefinite humanitarian truce to allow aid into Tigray, which the TPLF accepted a day later. Aid convoys resumed, though both sides accused the other of violations, and the truce collapsed into renewed fighting in August 2022, including battles around the town of Kobo and renewed airstrikes on Mekelle.
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
The Pretoria Agreement Ends the War
After African Union-mediated talks in South Africa, the federal government and the TPLF signed the Pretoria Agreement on November 2, 2022, a permanent cessation of hostilities. A follow-up roadmap in Nairobi on November 12 set terms for disarmament, humanitarian access, and the restoration of federal authority in Tigray. The war's toll, per African Union envoy estimates, ran to as many as 600,000 dead from combat, massacres, and famine, making it the deadliest conflict of the 2020s to that point.
Location: Pretoria, South Africa