UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an immediate end to renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia, warning that foreign intervention and fresh clashes risk igniting a wider crisis across the Horn of Africa.
In a statement issued in New York by UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, Guterres said he is "gravely concerned" by the sudden outbreak of intense military clashes across northern Ethiopia. He said the fighting in the Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions risks escalating in ways that would further destabilise the wider region, and reminded all states in the region of their Charter obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against one another's territorial integrity.
Guterres's remarks followed a letter from Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos to the UN Security Council accusing Eritrea of violating Ethiopia's territorial sovereignty. In the letter, dated Friday, Timothewos accused Eritrea of deploying infantry and mechanised units in recent weeks and of supporting, financing, arming and directing insurgent groups inside Ethiopia.
Reports have emerged that Eritrean soldiers entered the town of Adigrat and that military convoys carrying Eritrean troops were heading in the direction of Mekele, according to Deutsche Welle Amharic, as reported by Ethiopia Observer. Adigrat remains under the control of the TPLF, according to the same report.
Eritrea has neither confirmed nor explicitly denied the troop-crossing reports. In a statement posted on X, Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Meskel said Ethiopia's government was creating "a fallacious narrative of 'self-defense' to rationalise and camouflage its war of aggression," according to Ethiopia Observer.
The competing claims highlight the difficulty of establishing facts on the ground. The reports of Eritrean troop presence rest on Ethiopian government accusations and unnamed sources. Eritrea's official response leaves the question of cross-border troop movements unresolved.
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The conflict has already prompted a series of diplomatic ruptures. Ethiopia ordered the closure of its embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats earlier this month. Egypt subsequently expelled an Ethiopian diplomat a day after Ethiopia expelled an Egyptian official in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Observer reported.
Addis Insight reported that Ethiopian Airlines suspended commercial flights to Mekelle, Axum and Shire after Tigrayan forces seized those airports on September 23. Addis Insight also reported that during the initial escalation around September 22, more than 21 federal airstrikes and five drone sorties were recorded across northern sectors, including strikes in and around Alamata. Ethiopia also imposed an indefinite drone flight ban over Addis Ababa and surrounding areas, Addis Insight reported.
The latest escalation follows years of fragile peace in northern Ethiopia. War in Tigray broke out in November 2020 between Ethiopian federal forces and their allies and Tigrayan forces led by the TPLF. Eritrean forces fought alongside Ethiopian federal forces during that conflict. The Ethiopian government and the TPLF signed a cessation of hostilities agreement in Pretoria in November 2022, after which a Tigray Interim Regional Administration was established. Separately, fighting between federal forces and Fano militias in the Amhara region escalated in 2023, and the government declared a state of emergency there in August of that year. Ethiopia and Eritrea, which fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, signed a peace declaration in July 2018, ending the stalemate that followed their border war.
Sources: Ethiopia Observer, AllAfrica/UN News, Capital Ethiopia, Addis Insight.
