Tigray Forces Seize Three Airports as the Fighting Spreads
Tigrayan forces have taken the airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire, disrupting civilian flights, and the fighting has spread from southern Tigray into the Afar and Amhara regions, with overnight combat in the Afar border town of Abala. Ethiopia’s army claims to have killed more than 270 rebel fighters, a figure that cannot be verified. Around three-quarters of a million people were already displaced inside Tigray before this escalation began.
The Pretoria agreement that ended the last war has been eroding for years rather than collapsing this week. Jervin Naidoo of Oxford Economics Africa put it plainly: “since the end of the war, while the Pretoria Agreement has held, there have been consistent violations on both sides.” The regional dimension is the one to watch. Addis Ababa accuses Eritrea of backing the seven-group alliance and Asmara denies it, while Abiy Ahmed has pressed for ownership of Eritrea’s port at Assab, some sixty kilometres from the border, and has hinted he would take it by force. That is a territorial ambition sitting alongside an insurgency its neighbour is accused of funding. Watch Assab, and whether the African Union moves at all.