Official Claims and the Evidence Gap
Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) accused each other of launching new offensives across southern and eastern Tigray. The federal government and the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) described their actions as defensive, a response to TPLF attacks. The TPLF called the same operations an all-out offensive backed by drones and Eritrean forces. Neither claim can be verified from the capital or from a press release. What is visible on the ground is more specific: renewed movement of troops, interrupted roads, and civilians fleeing districts they had returned to only months earlier. The gap between official language and ground evidence is where the current crisis lives.
The Pretoria Agreement Has Not Been Implemented
The Pretoria Agreement, signed in November 2022, ended the active phase of the Tigray war. It called for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of Tigrayan forces, restoration of federal authority, and unimpeded humanitarian access. Two years later, DDR remains partial. Federal authorities have not fully restored services. Tigray’s interim administration (TIRA) governs without a clear budget or police mandate. Disputed areas such as Western Tigray remain occupied by Amhara forces and Eritrean troops, though Eritrea denies a presence. The current accusations are not an isolated flare-up. They are what a stalled peace process looks like when deadlines pass and no one enforces them.
Drone Strikes on Schools and Food Convoys
Reports from Tigray describe drone strikes hitting a school compound in Adi Daero and a food distribution point near Shire. The federal government denies targeting civilians. The TPLF says the strikes were deliberate. To understand why schools and food convoys are hit, look at what they do. A school in a rural district becomes a shelter for displaced families. A food convoy becomes the only functioning supply line for a population that has no markets, no cash, and no harvest. Attacking these targets does not produce a military victory. It produces starvation and displacement. Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), schools and humanitarian relief are protected. Repeated strikes on both suggest that the laws of war are being treated as obstacles rather than obligations.
Forced Recruitment and the Militarization of Civilians
Residents in southern Tigray report house-to-house recruitment by local officials and TPLF-affiliated militias. Some families say young men are taken without notice; others say they are given a choice between conscription and losing access to food aid. The TPLF denies forced recruitment, calling it voluntary mobilization for self-defense. The federal government points to these reports as proof that Tigray is preparing for war. Yet the federal government’s own airstrikes push civilians toward armed groups. When a drone can hit a market or a bus, young men may conclude that neutrality offers no safety. Both sides are militarizing the same civilian population they claim to protect.
Blocked Corridors and Suspended Flights
Aid workers in Mekelle say the main road from Afar has been closed for weeks. Flights to Shire and Axum were suspended after the new accusations. The suspension of flights matters because Tigray’s hospitals depend on airlifted medicine. Insulin, anesthesia, and trauma kits do not travel by donkey cart. Public services were already fragile: banks limit withdrawals, schools are closed, and electricity is intermittent. When corridors close, food security collapses first for the displaced, then for the host communities. The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that parts of Tigray remain at risk of famine-like conditions, measured by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) as Phase 5. Blocking aid is not a side effect of war. It is a method of war.
Displacement Without a Safe Destination
Families displaced from Alamata and Korem have moved toward Mekelle and Adigrat, sleeping in schoolyards and unfinished buildings. Many had already been displaced twice during the 2020–2022 war. They know the routes. They also know that camps are not safe: camps have been shelled, looted, and used for forced recruitment. In Afar, thousands who fled earlier Tigray offensives are again moving because they fear new fighting. In Amhara, Fano militias and federal forces are engaged in a separate war that overlaps with the Tigray front. The result is a region where displacement is no longer an emergency phase. It is a permanent condition.
Securitization and the Regional Spillover
Ethiopia’s political disputes are increasingly settled through aerial warfare and regional destabilization. The federal government uses drones bought from Turkey, China, and the United Arab Emirates. The TPLF uses its remaining networks in Tigray and allies among Oromo armed groups. Amhara forces claim Western Tigray as their own. Eritrea watches the border. This is securitization: every political disagreement becomes a military problem, and every military problem becomes a humanitarian one. The Pretoria Agreement did not create a mechanism to resolve these disputes. It froze them. Frozen conflicts do not stay frozen. They thaw into new offensives.
What Aid Workers Can and Cannot Do
Aid workers in Tigray describe a shrinking space. They cannot move convoys without clearance from federal and regional authorities. They cannot confirm drone strikes without risking their teams. They cannot speak publicly without being accused of taking sides. One worker in Mekelle said the hardest part is not the bombing. It is telling a mother that the therapeutic food for her child is sitting in a warehouse forty kilometers away, behind a checkpoint. Humanitarian neutrality is supposed to protect aid. In practice, it often protects the checkpoints.
The Human Cost of the Political Deadlock
Leaders in Addis Ababa and Mekelle are fighting over territory, legitimacy, and the meaning of the Pretoria Agreement. Civilians are fighting for water, food, and a roof. The current accusations may or may not lead to a full new war. The humanitarian catastrophe is already here. Schools are hit. Food convoys are hit. Young men are recruited under pressure. Families are displaced again. Aid corridors are closed. The real casualty is not a military position. It is the stabilization of a region already pushed to the edge of famine. Until both sides allow independent monitors and humanitarian access, the truth of who launched what will remain buried under the same rubble that buries the civilians.
