Northern Ethiopia’s shifting alliances explained

Between 2020 and 2022, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fought a bloody war against Ethiopia’s federal government and its allies in Eritrea and the Amhara militias known as Fano. Less than four years later, Ethiopia’s federal government is accusing those same former allies of supporting the TPLF, redrawing the map of alliances in northern Ethiopia.

So who are the actors now confronting Ethiopia’s federal government in this renewed conflict?

In March 2025, fighters from the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) led by Debretsion Gebremichael seized the regional radio station and the mayor’s office in Mekele, along with several towns along the Eritrean border. These included parts of the Sehartie district and the city of Adigrat, the region’s second-largest population centre, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

The centre also said Eritrea still controls parts of the Irob and Shiraro districts along the border, despite the peace agreement’s requirement that all foreign forces withdraw from Ethiopian territory.

In October 2025, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the TPLF and Eritrea, in a letter to the United Nations, of “financing, mobilising and directing” Fano forces that had advanced in the North Wollo area.

In the letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Ethiopia’s foreign minister said the alleged coordination had “become clearer in recent months” and accused “the hardline faction within the front and the Eritrean government” of preparing for war against Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian newspaper Addis Standard reported that the letter also accused the two sides of supporting an attempt by Fano forces to seize the city of Weldiya in the Amhara region in September, and said TPLF leaders and fighters had taken part directly in the operation.

Debretsion rejected the allegations, saying the letter contained “fabricated stories and smear campaigns” intended to divert attention from what he described as the federal government’s failure to honour the peace agreement. He called it “a dangerous reversal of history, an attempt to portray the aggressor as the victim and the victims as aggressors”, adding that the federal government was training new militias to destabilise Tigray.