Tigray Offensive in Ethiopia: Airports Seized, Flights Halted

ETHIOPIA · HORN OF AFRICA

Tigrayan forces hold three airports, Ethiopian Airlines has stopped flying north, and each side blames the other for starting the fighting.

The Tigray offensive in northern Ethiopia has closed three airports and stopped Ethiopian Airlines flights to the region. Federal officials and Tigrayan authorities each say the other side attacked first.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country, with about 132 million people in 2024 on World Bank figures. It lost its coastline in 1993, when Eritrea became independent, and has depended on foreign ports ever since.

Addis Ababa, its capital, also houses the African Union. The body now calling for restraint is headquartered in the country it is trying to calm.

What Is Confirmed in the Tigray Offensive

Ethiopian Airlines said on Wednesday 23 September 2026 that it had suspended flights to Mekelle, Axum and Shire. The airline cited the current situation in the Tigray region and promised to announce any resumption.

The African Union said Tigrayan forces had seized and occupied the three airports and detained federal personnel. An airport worker in Mekelle told AFP that staff were sent home because there were no flights.

Aid workers and a foreign security source told AFP that fighting began in the Afar towns of Abala and Erebti. Reports of fighting inside Amhara have not been independently confirmed.

Two Accounts of Who Attacked First

Getachew Reda, an adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said the TPLF launched an all-out offensive on Wednesday morning. He said the attacks hit government positions in Afar and Amhara.

The Tigray regional government said its forces had entered a defensive battle after bombardment by federal aircraft, drones and artillery. It described the federal action as an invasion.

Neither account of the Tigray offensive has been verified by outside observers. Federal authorities in Addis Ababa had not issued a fuller statement by Thursday 24 September 2026.

The Seven Groups Behind the New Alliance

Seven armed and political groups announced the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival on Sunday 20 September 2026. The TPLF is one of them, so it joined six other groups.

The TPLF is not a fringe actor in this. It dominated Ethiopia’s federal government for nearly three decades, until Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018.

He shut it out of the ruling party altogether in 2019, merging the old coalition into his Prosperity Party without it. That exclusion is central to the fighting that followed.

The others are the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army and the Ogaden National Liberation Front. They also include the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, the Benishangul Peoples’ Liberation Movement and the Gumuz Peoples’ Democratic Movement.

Fano commander Zemene Kassie chairs the alliance, which says it wants to remove Abiy Ahmed and form a transitional government. Analysts note the founding statement names no joint military commander.

How the Pretoria Agreement Came Apart

The war of 2020 to 2022 ended with an agreement signed in Pretoria, South Africa, on 2 November 2022. The African Union brokered it, and only the federal government and the TPLF signed.

That war was among the deadliest of the century so far, though no agreed death toll exists.A peer-reviewed study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine put the dead at about 102,000 adults.

Researchers at Ghent University estimated between 162,000 and 378,000. Eritrea and Amhara forces were not parties to that deal.

Both sides have since accused each other of failing to carry out its terms. In May 2026 the TPLF restored its pre-war regional administration, replacing the interim body created under the agreement.

Clashes and reported drone strikes followed over the months that came after.

Casualties and Aid Reported This Week

Tigrayan authorities said a strike on Alamata on Tuesday 22 September 2026 killed 14 people and injured 22 others. The town’s mayor, Mogos Shiferaw, told the BBC that two empty secondary schools were hit.

The account has not been independently verified, and the federal government has not commented on it. Around one million people in Tigray were already displaced from the earlier war.

The US State Department condemned a drone strike on a Catholic Relief Services aid convoy in Tigray. It asked for a full investigation and for the findings to be shared.

Eritrea’s Role, as Each Side Describes It

Abiy Ahmed’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters that the alliance members had been working together with Eritrean financial backing. Eritrea has repeatedly denied supporting them.

The TPLF spokesperson, Michael Asgedom, denied that Eritrean troops are in Tigray. The International Crisis Group describes the conflict as substantially a domestic Ethiopian matter.

No independent body has confirmed Eritrean involvement. Asmara had made no public statement on this week’s fighting by Thursday.

Why This Matters for Business in the Region

Air links are the clearest commercial effect of the Tigray offensive so far. Companies with staff in Mekelle, Axum or Shire have no scheduled flights and must plan road travel instead.

The airline matters well beyond Tigray. Ethiopian Airlines is Africa’s largest carrier, and Addis Ababa is the main gateway between the continent and the rest of the world.

It is one of the few direct links between Africa and South America, flying daily to São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Nothing has been reported to affect that route, and the suspensions so far are domestic.

Ethiopia’s main trade artery runs elsewhere. It moved 17.57 million tonnes of import and export cargo in 2025/26, and Djibouti handled 96.7 percent of the seaborne share.

That corridor runs south of the fighting and no disruption to it has been reported. The Addis Ababa to Djibouti road and rail links carry almost all Ethiopian imports.

Several things are not known. There is no state of emergency, no confirmed casualty total, and no federal statement on how Addis Ababa will respond.

It is also unclear how much territory has changed hands in Afar. Claims by former TPLF officials about six captured towns could not be confirmed by AFP.

What Diplomats Are Asking For

The African Union Commission chairperson, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, called for restraint and an immediate return to talks. He asked Ethiopia’s neighbours to avoid steps that would widen the fighting.

He has asked former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo to engage both sides urgently. Obasanjo led the mediation that produced the Pretoria agreement in 2022.

The US ambassador to Ethiopia, Ervin Massinga, called the offensive an unwinnable fight. Talks under the Pretoria framework remain the route both the African Union and Washington are pressing for.

More: Ethiopia news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are flights to Tigray still running?

No. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to Mekelle, Axum and Shire from 23 September 2026 and has not given a restart date.

How many groups are in the new alliance?

Seven in total, including the TPLF. That means the TPLF plus six other armed and political groups.

Has Ethiopia declared a state of emergency?

No such declaration had been announced by 24 September 2026. The federal response so far has come through statements by officials.

Sources: Reporting from the African Union Commission, the African Union Peace and Security Department, Ethiopian Airlines, AFP, Reuters, the BBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, the US State Department and Ethiopian transport ministry figures as reported by Birr Metrics; population from the World Bank and war-mortality estimates from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Ghent University, all retrieved 24 September 2026.

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