As fighting returns to the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, regional analysts warn that the fundamental driver of the renewed conflict is that opposing parties still believe they can achieve their objectives through military victory.
The Formation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival
Late last month, seven armed groups announced the creation of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival with the shared goal of removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from power. Among the signatories are the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Fano militia in Amhara, and the Oromo Liberation Army. Observers have characterized the coalition as an alliance of convenience
born out of mutual resentment rather than shared ideology.
Within days of the announcement, Tigrayan forces seized the airports in Mekelle, Axum, and Shire while opening new military fronts in Afar and Amhara. By September 25, phone and internet lines inside Tigray were cut. According to reporting on the ground, it was the TPLF rather than the federal government that ordered the telecommunications blackout.
The gathering of seven armed factions under the banner of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival represents a direct threat to the current federal state and government. Analysts note that these groups have spent decades prosecuting and killing one another, forming a tactical coalition despite having little structural overlap in their long-term aims beyond a common adversary in Addis Ababa.
The Collapse of the Pretoria Peace Agreement
The renewed hostilities have shattered the framework established by the Pretoria Peace Agreement, signed on November 2, 2022, to end two years of war. While that agreement successfully halted large-scale fighting and recorded an estimated 600,000 deaths from the preceding conflict, analysts argue it merely froze the crisis without resolving its underlying structural drivers.
Babu Ayindo noted that the 2022 accord functioned primarily to delay long-standing systemic conflicts. Global diplomats had previously breathed a sigh of relief when the African Union announced the permanent cessation of hostilities in Pretoria, celebrating a signed document rather than interrogating the underlying process.
In the lead-up to the latest violence, TPLF hardliners moved to oust the cooperative regional interim administration. They illegally reinstalled the pre-war regional assembly from 2020, openly defying the National Electoral Board and abandoning the legal framework established by the truce.
Assessment from Regional Experts on Obstacles to Negotiation
Dr. Jalale Getachew Birru, an East Africa regional expert at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, pointed out during an Africanews debate that diplomatic initiatives face a severe hurdle when belligerents remain convinced that military action will improve their bargaining position. Birru stated that opposing sides still appear to believe they can secure their goals through force, rendering immediate breakthroughs at the negotiating table unlikely.
Representing the Community of Tigrayans UK, Mulat Haregot emphasized that the human cost of the war persists regardless of signed texts, pointing to ongoing civilian displacement and the failure to achieve true normalization. Haregot argued that a settlement cannot be evaluated solely by whether the guns have temporarily stopped firing.
Ethiopia Balances Central Command with Regional Self-Rule
Commentators note that Ethiopia’s political history has long swung between a central government attempting to command and regions insisting on self-rule. This dynamic echoes historical periods such as the downfall of past regimes including the Derg, which fell in 1991 to a coalition of ethno-regional groups known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. The 1995 constitution subsequently established ethnic federalism and included Article 39, granting a right to secession, though party discipline from Addis Ababa meant self-rule remained largely on paper.
External factors continue to complicate the domestic crisis. Observers have tracked regional dynamics including Ethiopia’s push for access to the sea, which risks turning a civil war into a wider conflict involving neighboring Eritrea and pulling in watching regional powers. The fault lines of Sudan’s war have also begun running through Ethiopia, accompanied by broader geopolitical realignments across the Horn and East African regions.
Ultimately, Ethiopian citizens both at home and abroad remain the ultimate custodians of grassroots resources, facing the challenge of engaging in a people-driven process that reimagines self-determination and structural innovation in the quest for a peaceful future.
