Fighting breaks out in western Tigray as Ethiopia and TPLF trade blame

Clashes have broken out in western Tigray near Sheraro, in what is being described as one of the most serious threats yet to the fragile 2022 Pretoria peace deal. The fighting is taking place in a region close to Ethiopia's border with Sudan, adding to concern about the scale and possible spread of the violence. Both Ethiopia's federal authorities and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, are blaming each other for starting the assault.

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Tigray's regional government said in a statement from Mekelle that federal forces opened the attack at dawn on Saturday and advanced from the direction of Sheraro. Abraham Belay, a government minister who previously led Tigray's transitional administration during the war, confirmed that clashes were under way but accused forces loyal to TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael of launching them. In a post on Facebook, he called for dialogue and said: "Enough war!

Let us resolve our differences through dialogue." The report did not give casualty figures or say how far the fighting had spread. The latest violence follows months of worsening relations between Addis Ababa and the TPLF, the party that dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018. Both sides have accused the other of failing to carry out the terms of the 2022 peace agreement, which ended the war between federal forces and Tigrayan fighters.

Tigrayan authorities have accused the ruling Prosperity Party of maintaining a blockade and carrying out drone attacks against the region, saying the situation has now escalated into full-scale war. The regional government also urged Tigrayan forces, civil society groups and religious institutions to prepare for what it called a struggle for national survival. The fighting matters because the Pretoria agreement was meant to stop one of the deadliest conflicts in recent Ethiopian history, but it left key political and security disputes unresolved.

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Analysts have warned that the underlying causes of the conflict between Mekelle and Addis Ababa were never fully settled, even after the ceasefire. Kjetil Tronvoll, an Ethiopia specialist at Oslo New University College, said the latest clashes were the most serious incident since the deal was signed. That assessment underlines the risk that the current confrontation could undo the limited stability created by the agreement.

The dispute also reflects a wider struggle over power inside Tigray and over who can claim to represent the region. Getachew Reda, a former TPLF spokesman who now advises Abiy Ahmed, has urged commanders in the Tigray Defence Forces to abandon Debretsion Gebremichael, accusing him of relying on Eritrea and Amhara's Fano militia to return to power. Reda and Redwan Hussein, Ethiopia's intelligence chief, were the signatories for the TPLF and the federal government respectively when the Pretoria deal was reached in 2022.

In June, the two men co-wrote an opinion piece warning that war was imminent, suggesting the current crisis had been building for some time. What remains unclear is the scale of the fighting, whether it is confined to the Sheraro area, and whether either side is prepared to step back from escalation. There has been no confirmed casualty toll in the material provided, and no independent account of the battlefield situation.

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