Ethiopia slides back to war as fragile Pretoria peace breaks
By Tom Beckwith · Reporting from Washington ·
The collapse of the Pretoria Agreement and a new anti-government alliance drag Ethiopia back toward a devastating civil conflict as old territorial disputes resurface.
The interest in the wreckage
The Pretoria Agreement of November 2022 was always a document bought on credit. It ended a two-year war, but it left the fundamental ledger untouched. Nations have interests, not friendships. When a peace pact papers over who actually owns the land and who keeps the guns, the countdown to the next collision starts immediately. As Al Jazeera and the Egypt Independent report, fighting has intensified between Ethiopia’s federal army and Tigrayan forces as of September 2026. The TPLF faction led by Debretsion Gebremichael retook control of Tigray’s administration, displacing the interim administration. They dissolved the arrangements brokered in South Africa because those arrangements demanded disarmament and a surrender of western Tigray. The federal government alleges Tigrayan forces retained weapons they were required to surrender. Tigrayan leaders allege the government failed to secure the withdrawal of other forces or the return of displaced people to western Tigray. Trust is not a strategy; capabilities are. When the TPLF seized the airports at Mekelle, Axum, and Shire, they were not negotiating; they were establishing facts on the tarmac. The African Union declared the seizure of airports inconsistent with the Pretoria agreement, but communiqués do not stop tanks. The Syrian Civil War showed us how quickly a fractured opposition can reduce a state to ash once the rules of the board are kicked away.
Capabilities, cash, and the new alignment
The tools available to each capital dictate the violence. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government faces an overstretched federal army managing armed conflicts in Amhara and Oromia. To check the north, Addis Ababa relies on federal drone strikes. But desperation has found a strange arithmetic. Seven armed groups formed the "Alliance for Survival" in September 2026. The coalition unites the TPLF, the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army, and groups from the Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz areas. This is not an alliance of vision; it is an exercise in mutual survival against Prime Minister Abiy. The strongest opposing case argues that this broad coalition brings enough military weight to crack the center. Proponents believe it will force a genuine transitional government in Addis Ababa. That case ignores the raw history of the Tigray War. The same groups now shaking hands in secret spent years butchering each other over the exact borders they currently claim. The Amhara forces took control of western Tigray during the 2020-2022 war. Amhara claimants argue western Tigray should not have been incorporated into the region when boundaries were redrawn. The TPLF demands that land back. The Fano militia intends to keep it. The alliance is a holding pattern over a knife fight. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s relations with Eritrea have deteriorated over Prime Minister Abiy's push for access to Red Sea ports like Assab. Addis Ababa accuses Eritrea of backing the new alliance with financial support, an allegation Asmara denies.
The price of five years out
The cost of this escalation will be paid in blood and ruined harvests over the next half-decade. If Prime Minister Abiy’s government falls to the Alliance for Survival, the victors will immediately turn their rifles on one another over territorial spoils. This outcome mirrors the immediate post-1991 fracture of the coalition that overthrew the Derg. If the federal army uses air superiority and drones to crush the northern advance, it will leave behind an occupied, starving Tigray. That region would be governed by silence and surveillance. Neither outcome leaves Ethiopia whole. The diplomatic machinery remains entirely theatrical against capitals driven by fear and ambition. Olusegun Obasanjo is deployed by the African Union, while the UN and IGAD urge neighbors to avoid worsening the crisis. The professional soldiers and diplomats who negotiated Pretoria saw this collapse coming years ago. They were overruled by political masters who preferred the illusion of victory to the hard labor of compromise. Ethiopia is sliding back into the abyss because its leaders treat statecraft as a zero-sum theater of total domination.
Sources
- Al Jazeera: Is Ethiopia on the verge of another civil war as fighting erupts in Tigray?
- BBC: Ethiopia fighting: Are Tigray's TPLF forces and the army heading back to war?
- ACLED: ACLED ALERTS: Ethiopia Conflict Live
- Egypt Independent: War has returned to Ethiopia’s Tigray — and former enemies are now fighting together. What changed?
- BBC: How fresh fighting in Tigray could spark wider conflict in Ethiopia