Addis Abeba — In my op-ed, “Tipping Point: Ethiopia edges toward crisis as renewed tensions loom over Tigray; conflict spreads in Amhara, Oromia,” published by Addis Standard in July 2025, I warned that Ethiopia was approaching a dangerous turning point, as renewed tensions in Tigray coincided with ongoing conflict in Amhara and Oromia. At the time, the central concern was that the fragile peace established by the 2022 Pretoria Agreement could unravel if Ethiopia’s unresolved political disputes continued to be addressed primarily through security measures rather than meaningful political dialogue. More than a year later, that warning has acquired a far more urgent meaning.
Fighting has returned to northern Ethiopia. Beyond the Tigray region, conflict has spread into parts of Amhara and Afar while a new alliance of seven Ethiopian political and armed groups has emerged against the federal government. The African Union and United Nations have both warned that the renewed violence risks reversing the gains made since the Pretoria agreement and could develop into a much broader conflict.
But the most important development is not any individual battlefield. It is the convergence of Ethiopia’s previously separate conflicts. That is the central argument of this article.
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Ethiopia is no longer confronting only a Tigray crisis, an Amhara insurgency, or an Oromia conflict in isolation. These conflicts are increasingly interacting with one another while unfolding alongside deteriorating relations with Eritrea, the continuing war in Sudan, tensions involving Egypt and the Nile, and disputes over maritime access and a rapidly militarizing Red Sea environment.
The danger is therefore larger than a renewed Tigray war: once separate conflicts begin reinforcing one another, containing one becomes progressively more difficult because every new front changes the calculations on the others.
From Pretoria to the brink
The Pretoria Agreement, signed in November 2022 under African Union mediation, remains one of the most important diplomatic achievements in Ethiopia’s recent history. It ended the large-scale fighting between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after a devastating two-year war.
But Pretoria was a cessation of hostilities, not a comprehensive settlement of every political question underlying the conflict. That distinction has become decisive.
The agreement did not, by itself, resolve the contested status of territories, the return of internally displaced people, transitional justice, regional security arrangements, political representation, or the broader constitutional relationship between Addis Abeba and Tigray.
By early 2026, the unresolved nature of those questions was becoming increasingly visible. In April, the TPLF announced the reinstatement of Tigray’s pre-war regional council, directly challenging the federal government’s extension of the mandate of the Tigray Interim Administration. The move demonstrated how profoundly questions of political legitimacy and constitutional authority remained unsettled.
Earlier, in July 2025, Addis Standard reported warnings from Tigrayan civil society and political actors that internal divisions were placing the region on what they described as a dangerous path toward renewed conflict. Those warnings were followed by the emergence of new armed formations and growing tensions between rival political and security factions.
By February 2026, the United Nations was already warning that renewed tensions and reported clashes in Tigray were worsening the security environment and urging the parties to fully implement the Pretoria agreement.
The lesson is clear: The guns stopped in 2022, but the political conflict never fully ended.
Return of war, different strategic environment
The fighting that erupted in September should not simply be described as a repeat of the 2020-2022 Tigray war. The strategic environment has changed dramatically.
In the previous war, the federal government, Eritrean forces, and Amhara forces fought against the TPLF. Today, Ethiopia’s political and military alignments are much more fluid.
The TPLF has allied with six other opposition groups, including the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Oromo Liberation Army. The alliance does not mean that these organizations have identical political objectives or operate as a unified military command. Their interests remain substantially different and, in some cases, contradictory.
Once separate conflicts begin reinforcing one another, containing one becomes progressively more difficult because every new front changes the calculations on the others. “
But the alliance nevertheless matters. It creates a mechanism through which previously separate conflicts can begin to reinforce one another.
Reuters has reported that the TPLF enters this confrontation with more external and domestic political relationships than it possessed in 2020, but also with significantly greater internal divisions. The Tigrayan leadership itself has faced defections, political polarization, and disputes over the direction of the region since the Pretoria agreement. That creates an unusual strategic situation.
In 2020, the TPLF was relatively isolated but internally cohesive. In 2026, it has more potential allies but appears more politically fragmented. That distinction will matter enormously to the trajectory of the conflict.
Geography of escalation
The most worrying feature of the renewed fighting is its geography.
The conflict has already extended beyond Tigray. Fighting has occurred in southern Tigray and across parts of Amhara and Afar. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reported clashes around Kobo, Gidan, Lalibela, Sekota, and the Tigray-Afar border, while federal forces subsequently regained control of Sekota. This matters because these are not politically or economically irrelevant locations.
Afar is strategically connected to Ethiopia’s principal trade route through Djibouti. Any prolonged insecurity along that corridor could have consequences for Ethiopia’s economy, humanitarian access, and commercial supply chains.
The renewed fighting therefore has an increasingly important economic dimension. A conflict that disrupts a strategic transport artery is no longer merely a regional security problem. It becomes a national economic problem.
The same applies to Lalibela and other areas whose airports and transport networks connect northern Ethiopia to the rest of the country. Flights to Lalibela were suspended as fighting approached the area, illustrating how quickly military escalation can disrupt civilian mobility and economic activity.
The seizure of the airports in Mekelle, Axum, and Shire was therefore symbolically and strategically significant. The African Union explicitly condemned the occupation of the civilian airports and warned that it threatened the gains achieved through Pretoria.
Amhara, Oromia fronts demand attention
The danger of the current crisis lies partly in the fact that the federal government is not entering it from a position of uncontested internal stability. The Amhara conflict has continued since 2023, when confrontation between federal forces and Fano escalated following disputes over the restructuring of regional security forces. Oromia presents another persistent challenge, with armed conflict involving the Oromo Liberation Army continuing alongside political tensions between the federal government and Oromo actors.
ACLED currently describes Ethiopia’s security environment as being driven principally by fighting between federal forces and Fano in Amhara, the ongoing rebellion involving the Oromo Liberation Army in Oromia, renewed tensions in Tigray, and mounting geopolitical tensions with Eritrea and Sudan.
This is the heart of the problem. A state fighting several conflicts simultaneously faces a different strategic challenge from a state fighting one insurgency. Every additional front consumes personnel, intelligence, logistics, finances, and political attention.
More importantly, pressure on one front can create opportunities for actors on another. That does not require a formal alliance. It only requires timing.
Eritrea: External variable in Ethiopia’s crisis
The most dangerous external variable remains Eritrea. During the previous war in Tigray, Eritrea was one of the federal government’s most important military partners. Today, relations between Addis Abeba and Asmara have deteriorated sharply.
The dispute has increasingly centered on Ethiopia’s strategic interest in Red Sea access and Eritrea’s concerns about its sovereignty and security. This creates a classic security dilemma.
Ethiopia, as a landlocked state, has strong economic and strategic reasons to seek reliable maritime access. Eritrea, meanwhile, controls a strategically important Red Sea coastline and has its own security calculations concerning Ethiopia’s regional ambitions. The problem is that the domestic Ethiopian conflict is now unfolding against this already deteriorating bilateral relationship.
Ethiopian officials have accused Eritrea and other neighboring states of supporting forces opposed to Addis Ababa. Eritrea has rejected accusations of supporting armed groups. These claims should remain clearly distinguished from independently verified facts. But the strategic deterioration itself is not in doubt. And that is enough to make the situation dangerous.
If Eritrea were to become directly involved in renewed Ethiopian fighting, the conflict would rapidly acquire an interstate dimension. That would transform the crisis.
Sudan war, Nile tensions
Ethiopia’s western frontier presents another vulnerability.
Sudan’s continuing war has created a highly unstable security environment along Ethiopia’s border. The longer Sudan’s conflict continues, the greater the potential for arms trafficking, irregular armed movements, refugee flows, and cross-border networks.
The Al-Fashaga dispute adds another layer of tension.
Ethiopia therefore faces the unusual situation of confronting renewed internal conflict while sharing borders with states experiencing their own severe security crises.
This is precisely the kind of environment in which regional conflicts can begin to interact. The danger is not necessarily that Ethiopia and Sudan will become one war. It is that instability in one country can alter the strategic calculations of actors in the other.
Egypt adds another dimension to this increasingly interconnected crisis.
The dispute between Cairo and Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) remains one of the most consequential strategic disagreements in the Nile Basin.
Egypt also has significant interests in Sudan and the Red Sea.
Consequently, instability inside Ethiopia cannot be completely separated from the wider Nile Basin security environment. At the same time, Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions connect its internal political crisis to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Horn is therefore experiencing several overlapping strategic competitions at once: the Nile, Red Sea access, port infrastructure, maritime security, Sudan’s war, and Ethiopia’s internal political struggle.
None of these disputes is necessarily destined to produce war. But their interaction makes the consequences of renewed Ethiopian conflict considerably harder to predict.
Red Sea, proxy trap
The wider Red Sea environment is perhaps the most important regional multiplier.
The Bab al-Mandab is one of the world’s critical maritime chokepoints. The conflict environment surrounding the Red Sea has already disrupted commercial shipping and intensified international military activity. At the same time, Gulf states and other external powers have developed major economic, diplomatic and security interests across the Horn. This creates a risk that Ethiopia’s internal crisis could become another arena for proxy competition.
The mechanism is familiar. Domestic actors seek external assistance to strengthen their position against rivals. External actors provide support because they see an opportunity to advance strategic interests. The domestic conflict then becomes increasingly embedded in a wider geopolitical struggle. Once that happens, compromise becomes more difficult.
When domestic political disputes are outsourced to foreign patrons, local grievances can become embedded in geopolitical rivalries that make compromise increasingly difficult. This is why Ethiopia’s neighbors should be concerned not only about which side wins a particular battle, but about whether the conflict becomes internationalized.
Humanitarian clock
The most immediate victims of this trajectory are civilians.
The humanitarian consequences of the renewed fighting are already becoming visible. The International Committee of the Red Cross evacuated 161 people from Mekelle to Semera on 28 September, including federal personnel, Ethiopian Airlines and civil aviation staff, African Union monitors, and Ethiopian Red Cross personnel.
The United Nations has warned that fighting is disrupting humanitarian operations through road closures, telecommunications disruptions, and insecurity. It has also reported incidents affecting humanitarian personnel and assets.
That is particularly alarming because Tigray is not recovering from a position of normality. It is recovering from a devastating war.
The region continues to carry the burden of displacement, damaged infrastructure, disrupted health systems, and economic deprivation. Addis Standard reported earlier this year that fuel shortages had become severe enough to ground ambulances across Tigray, while other reports documented disruptions to flights, banking, and public salaries.
A renewed war therefore does not begin from zero. It begins on top of the ruins of the previous one.
Crisis of political trust
Military escalation is only the visible symptom of a deeper crisis of political trust.
Ethiopia’s political system has struggled to reconcile a strong federal state with demands for regional autonomy, political representation, and constitutional self-government. The debate over multinational federalism has consequently become one of the country’s defining political questions.
The answer cannot simply be permanent centralization. But neither can it be the fragmentation of state authority into competing armed enclaves.
Military escalation is only the visible symptom of a deeper crisis of political trust. “
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Ethiopia needs a political settlement capable of reconciling national institutions with meaningful regional political participation. That requires dialogue among actors who do not trust one another. It also requires international and regional mediation capable of creating enough confidence for those actors to enter negotiations without assuming that dialogue itself is a trap.
Stepping back from the brink
The African Union has already made clear what the immediate diplomatic priority should be.
Following the seizure of the three airports and the escalation across northern Ethiopia, the AU called for maximum restraint, immediate de-escalation, and the resumption of direct talks under the Pretoria framework. It has asked former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa, to engage the parties. The United Nations has made the same appeal, warning specifically against actions that could lead to a broader and more devastating conflict.
The objective, however, should not be another temporary pause followed by another political breakdown. The next phase must address the issues that Pretoria left unresolved. That means confronting territorial disputes, displacement, transitional justice, regional security arrangements, and the federal-regional constitutional relationship. It also means recognizing that Amhara and Oromia cannot be permanently treated as military problems.
If political grievances repeatedly produce armed resistance, military containment alone cannot provide durable stability.
Conclusion: Ethiopia’s second tipping point
The greatest danger facing Ethiopia today is not that one armed group might gain territory. It is that several conflicts may begin reinforcing one another.
Follow Politics Tigray affects Amhara and Afar. Amhara affects federal military deployments. Oromia stretches the security apparatus further.
On the other hand, Eritrea changes the strategic equation in the north. Sudan complicates Ethiopia’s western security environment. Egypt and the Nile introduce another layer of strategic competition. Somalia, Somaliland, and Djibouti are also connected to Ethiopia’s maritime calculations. And the Red Sea provides the wider geopolitical arena in which these interests increasingly intersect.
This is the conflict-connectivity trap.
In my previous article published in July 2025, I warned that Ethiopia was approaching a tipping point as renewed Tigray tensions converged with continuing conflict in Amhara and Oromia. Today, that warning is no longer simply about the possibility of renewed fighting in one region. It is about the possibility that Ethiopia’s multiple conflicts could become mutually reinforcing and, in the process, destabilize the wider Horn of Africa.
The window for preventing that outcome is narrowing. The choice before Ethiopia’s political actors is not simply between victory and defeat. It is between continued militarization and the difficult work of constructing a political settlement capable of holding the country together.
The choice before the African Union, IGAD, and international partners is equally consequential. They must act before Ethiopia’s internal conflicts become permanently internationalized. Because if the conflicts converge, the consequences will not stop at Ethiopia’s borders.
The Horn of Africa has seen what happens when Ethiopia’s internal crisis becomes a regional crisis. It should not have to learn the lesson twice. AS
Editor’s Note: Adam Daud Ahmed is a Horn of Africa political and security analyst specializing in democracy and counterterrorism. He can be reached at [email protected]
