Ethiopia’s Interlocking Conflicts: Tigray, Amhara, Oromia Converge Amid Rising Horn of Africa Risks

Addis Abeba — In my July 2025 op-ed for Addis Standard titled “Tipping Point: Ethiopia on the Brink as Tigray Tensions Rise and Fighting Spreads to Amhara and Oromia,” I warned that the country was nearing a dangerous turning point. Renewed Tigray tensions overlapped with persistent fighting in Amhara and Oromia, raising fears that the fragile peace of the 2022 Pretoria Agreement might collapse if political disputes continued to be managed mainly through force rather than dialogue. Over a year later, that warning feels even more pressing.

Fighting has resurfaced in northern Ethiopia. Beyond Tigray, hostilities have spread into parts of Amhara and Afar, and a new coalition of seven Ethiopian political and armed groups has formed in opposition to the federal government. Both the African Union and the United Nations warn that this renewed violence threatens to erase the gains of the Pretoria Agreement and could escalate into a wider conflict.

The most significant development is not any single battlefield; rather, it is the merging of Ethiopia’s formerly distinct conflicts. This convergence forms the core argument of the article.

Ethiopia is no longer facing isolated crises in Tigray, Amhara, or Oromia. These conflicts are increasingly interacting with one another, occurring amid deteriorating relations with Eritrea, the ongoing war in Sudan, Egypt‑Nile tensions, and disputes over maritime access in a rapidly militarizing Red Sea.

The danger exceeds a renewed Tigray war; once separate conflicts start reinforcing each other, containing any single front becomes harder, as each new front shifts the strategic calculations for the others.

From Pretoria to the brink

The Pretoria Agreement, signed in November 2022 under African Union mediation, remains one of Ethiopia’s most significant diplomatic achievements in recent history. It halted the large‑scale fighting between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after a devastating two‑year war.

However, the Pretoria Agreement was merely a cessation of hostilities, not a comprehensive settlement of every political question at the root of the conflict—a distinction that has proven decisive.

The agreement did not, by itself, settle the contested status of territories, the return of internally displaced persons, transitional justice, regional security arrangements, political representation, or the broader constitutional relationship between Addis Abeba and Tigray.

By early 2026, the unresolved nature of these issues grew increasingly apparent. In April, the TPLF announced the reinstatement of Tigray’s pre‑war regional council, directly challenging the federal government’s extension of the Tigray Interim Administration’s mandate. The move underscored how deeply 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 pushing the region toward what they described as a dangerous path to renewed conflict. Those warnings were followed by the emergence of new armed formations and rising tensions between rival political and security factions.

By February 2026, the United Nations warned that renewed tensions and reported clashes in Tigray were worsening the security environment, urging the parties to fully implement the Pretoria Agreement.

The lesson is clear: while the guns fell silent in 2022, the underlying political conflict never fully ended.

Return of war, different strategic environment

The fighting that erupted in September should not be seen merely as a repeat of the 2020‑2022 Tigray war; the strategic environment has changed dramatically.

In the earlier war, the federal government, Eritrean forces, and Amhara forces fought against the TPLF. Today, Ethiopia’s political and military alignments are far more fluid.

The TPLF has allied with six other opposition groups, including the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Oromo Liberation Army. This alliance does not imply identical political objectives or 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.

Nevertheless, the alliance matters. It creates a mechanism whereby previously separate conflicts can begin to reinforce one another.

Reuters reports that the TPLF now enters this confrontation with more external and domestic political relationships than it had in 2020, yet also with significantly greater internal divisions. The Tigrayan leadership has faced defections, political polarization, and disputes over the region’s direction since the Pretoria Agreement, creating an unusual strategic situation.

In 2020, the TPLF was relatively isolated but internally cohesive. By 2026, it has gained more potential allies but appears more politically fragmented—a distinction that will greatly influence the conflict’s trajectory.

Geography of escalation

The most troubling aspect of the renewed fighting is its geography.

The conflict has already spread beyond Tigray. Fighting has occurred in southern Tigray and across parts of Amhara and Afar. ACLED reported clashes around Kobo, Gidan, Lalibela, Sekota, and the Tigray‑Afar border; federal forces later regained control of Sekota. These locations are not politically or economically insignificant.

Afar lies on Ethiopia’s principal trade route through Djibouti. Prolonged insecurity along that corridor could harm Ethiopia’s economy, humanitarian access, and commercial supply chains.

Consequently, the renewed fighting carries an increasingly important economic dimension. A conflict that disrupts a strategic transport artery is no longer just a regional security issue—it becomes a national economic problem.

The same applies to Lalibela and other areas whose airports and transport networks link northern Ethiopia to the rest of the country. Flights to Lalibela were suspended as fighting approached, showing how swiftly 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 these civilian airports and warned that it threatened the gains secured by the Pretoria Agreement.

Amhara, Oromia fronts demand attention

The current crisis is exacerbated by the fact that the federal government is not entering it from a position of uncontested internal stability. The Amhara conflict has persisted since 2023, when clashes between federal forces and Fano escalated after 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 of 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 juggling several conflicts at once faces a different strategic challenge from a state confronting a single insurgency; each additional front consumes personnel, intelligence, logistics, finances, and political attention.

More importantly, pressure on one front can create opportunities for actors on another, even without a formal alliance—timing alone can suffice.

Eritrea: External variable in Ethiopia’s crisis

The most dangerous external variable remains Eritrea. During the previous Tigray war, 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, creating 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 regarding Ethiopia’s regional ambitions. The problem is that Ethiopia’s domestic conflict is unfolding against an already deteriorating bilateral relationship.

Ethiopian officials have accused Eritrea and other neighboring states of supporting forces opposed to Addis Ababa, while Eritrea has rejected accusations of supporting armed groups. These claims should be distinguished from independently verified facts, but the strategic deterioration itself is undeniable—and sufficient to make the situation dangerous.

Should Eritrea become directly involved in renewed Ethiopian fighting, the conflict would rapidly acquire an interstate dimension, transforming 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 the conflict persists, the greater the risk of arms trafficking, irregular armed movements, refugee flows, and cross‑border networks.

The Al‑Fashaga dispute adds another layer of tension.

Consequently, Ethiopia faces the unusual situation of confronting renewed internal conflict while sharing borders with states that are themselves experiencing severe security crises.

This is precisely the kind of environment in which regional conflicts can begin to interact. The danger is not that Ethiopia and Sudan will necessarily become one war, but that instability in one country can shift 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 fully separated from the wider Nile Basin security environment. At the same time, Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions link its internal political crisis to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Horn of Africa 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. Meanwhile, Gulf states and other external powers have developed major economic, diplomatic, and security interests across the Horn, creating 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, while external actors provide support to advance their own strategic interests. Once the domestic conflict becomes embedded in a wider geopolitical struggle, compromise becomes more difficult.

When domestic political disputes are outsourced to foreign patrons, local grievances can become embedded in geopolitical rivalries, making compromise increasingly difficult. Consequently, Ethiopia’s neighbors should be concerned not only about which side wins a particular battle, but also 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 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, and has reported incidents affecting humanitarian personnel and assets.

This is particularly alarming because Tigray is not recovering from a baseline of normality; it is still recovering from a devastating war.

The region continues to bear 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 start 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 be permanent centralization, nor 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.

Ethiopia needs a political settlement capable of reconciling national institutions with meaningful regional political participation. This requires dialogue among actors who lack trust, as well as international and regional mediation that can build sufficient confidence for those actors to enter negotiations without viewing dialogue as 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 issued a similar appeal, warning specifically against actions that could lead to a broader and more devastating conflict.

However, the objective should not be another temporary pause followed by another political breakdown. The next phase must address the issues that Pretoria left unresolved—namely 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 deliver durable stability.

Conclusion: Ethiopia’s second tipping point

The greatest danger facing Ethiopia today is not that a single armed group might gain territory, but that several conflicts may begin reinforcing one another.

Tigray affects Amhara and Afar; Amhara influences federal military deployments; Oromia stretches the security apparatus further.

On the other hand, Eritrea alters 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 linked 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 July 2025 article I warned that Ethiopia was approaching a tipping point as renewed Tigray tensions converged with ongoing conflict in Amhara and Oromia. Today, that warning is no longer merely about the possibility of renewed fighting in one region; it concerns the possibility that Ethiopia’s multiple conflicts could become mutually reinforcing and, in doing so, 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 already witnessed what occurs when Ethiopia’s internal crisis escalates into 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 aadan7333@hotmail.com

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