(Photo by Alisdare Hickson via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)
An increasingly fragile domestic situation in Ethiopia has the potential to fracture the country. After 2 years of devastating war in the northern Tigray region came to a ceasefire in 2022, domestic conflict began again in the East African nation in 2023.
Following the ceasefire between the Ethiopian state and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), members of the Fano militia in the neighbouring Amhara region felt betrayed by what they perceived as a lack of representation in the post-civil war peace process. Having fought on the side of the Ethiopian military against the TPLF, Fano then launched its own insurgency against the government that continues to this day.
Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. It is home to over 110 million people and more than 90 different ethnic groups. The majority of Ethiopians are either Oromo (around 34 percent) or Amhara (around 27 percent), with significant minority populations of Somali and Tigray each comprising about 6 percent of the country.
Ethnic-based tensions have been exploited politically for several decades in the country, culminating in the Tigray War. Lasting from 2020 to 2022, the Tigray War received relatively little attention in international media, yet it remains crucial for understanding the current unrest in Amhara.
Abiy Ahmed Ali & the Rise of Ethnic Tensions
The election of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali in 2018 brought about a series of major political shifts in Ethiopia that ultimately sparked the Tigray War. From 1991 to 2018, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) governed Ethiopia, with a focus on providing equal representation of the country’s major ethnic groups in its coalition.
During this period, the prime ministers within this ruling coalition were both members of the TPLF. While visibly run by the Tigrayan minority, the EPRDF-led Ethiopia made decisions collectively within its party structure. Abiy’s election to the head of EPRDF, however, was followed by his decision to expel the TPLF from its coalition without any internal party discussion.
Abiy’s administration then signed a peace deal to resolve its long-standing border dispute with neighbouring Eritrea. Once part of Ethiopia, Eritrea fought for its independence in a decades-long civil war before becoming an independent nation in 1993. Located on the north bordering Eritrea, Tigray has historically suffered disproportionately from the fighting between the two nations. The decades of border conflict post-independence saw war crimes committed by the Eritrean armed forces. While this peace deal with Eritrea earned Abiy a Nobel Peace Prize, many Tigrayans felt even further alienated by this move.
As these major grievances began to build, Abiy’s decision to postpone regional elections during the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the TPLF’s mobilization. The group launched attacks on an Ethiopian military base in November 2020. A coalition of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF), Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF), and the Amhara-nationalist group Fano declared war against the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF). Together, they began a brutal campaign of violence in the region.
Media Blackouts & Poor Reporting: Covering Up the Tigray Genocide
The two-year war in Tigray displaced over 2.7 million people. Furthermore, the fighting between the two sides killed 300,000 civilians and 400,000 soldiers. The United Nations’ International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia in published their findings in October of 2023, stating that they were “not able to make [the] determination” that genocide was committed by Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Fano against the Tigrayan people. Since that report, however, other investigations have since argued that the crimes against humanity inflicted on Tigray constitute genocide.
War crimes were also perpetrated by the TDF and other Tigray-affiliated groups, particularly in kidnappings, torture, and murder against Amhara people. Nonetheless, several international reports have demonstrated that the ENDF, EDF, and Fano carried out the overwhelming majority of war crimes. Given that the war saw two nations’ armed forces against a regional political group, Ethiopia and Eritrea also bear greater responsibility for the violence carried out within their borders.
Exact casualties on each side are still hard to determine, especially with the difficulties of factoring famine deaths into these totals, withholding of aid and destruction of crops occurring throughout the war. State-sponsored media blackouts throughout the war partially caused this challenge of acquiring information, as Ethiopia and Eritrea barred many international observers from investigating the conflict.
Tigrayans have become a scapegoat for Ethiopia’s rising ethnic tensions. The Ethiopian and Eritrean states have spread dehumanizing rhetoric referring to Tigrayans as ‘daylight hyenas’, ‘cancer,’ and ‘weeds.’ Meta has faced international scrutiny for allowing this one-sided narrative on their platforms, with countries such as Kenya launching civil suits against the American social media conglomerate for its role in the genocide.
The Exploitation of Ethnic Tensions Continues Post-Genocide
One could argue that Abiy engaged in a national campaign against the Tigrayans as an attempt to unify Ethiopia’s ethnic groups and neighbouring Eritrea against a common enemy. After the 2022 ceasefire signed in Pretoria, this gamble has more or less backfired. Despite fighting alongside Eritrea and Ethiopia, they did not give Amhara group Fano a seat at the negotiating table. This has only led to further unrest.
The Amhara people suffered many losses during the war. The lack of representation for their interests and uncertainty surrounding the ceasefire has continued the cycle of violence. Fueled by these fears, in 2023, a revolt by Amhara groups, such as Fano, erupted in Ethiopia’s second-most populous province. To date, the conflict has displaced over 100,000 in the region. While the conflict briefly paused in late 2023, it resumed in mid-2024.
Since this renewed insurgency in 2024, the Ethiopian government has only doubled down in its unwillingness to meaningfully initiate peace talks with armed groups. It has arrested thousands in the Amhara region without trial and suspended several human rights organizations operating in the area. These decisions have only further radicalized the Amhara population against the unpopular Abiy regime.
Self-Interest over Accountability: International Actors’ Indifference Toward Ethiopia
The ongoing insurgency in Amhara demonstrates the risk of hasty, short-term peace deals. These deals have only continued to politically alienate Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups. Moving forward, there is a need for a lasting, internationally mediated resolution to the Tigray War. Independent international investigations into events in Tigray have been continually blocked and obstructed by Ethiopia and Eritrea. As the fighting has the potential to engulf the whole country, the international community must pay greater international attention to this event, especially given the lack of media coverage given to the initial war.
International actors in Ethiopia’s recent conflicts have been eager to exploit the country’s recent conflicts for their own economic or geopolitical gain. While there has been little to no overt military support for one side over the other, the continuation or expansion of trade deals with Ethiopia demonstrates the unspoken approval for Abiy’s actions. While several Western nations placed sanctions against Ethiopia during the course of the war, the European Union, Russia, Canada, China, and the United States have all signed new economic or military partnerships with the state since 2022.
US interests in the region have been consistently self-interested. The US supported Abiy’s regime throughout the genocide, yet from the mid-90s onwards, also provided financial backing to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front-headed national government. This ‘support’ was not only self-serving but actively harmful in the long term. In labelling TPLF as ‘US-backed’, the Ethiopian state and its allies have been able to legitimize their campaign in Tigray under the banner of ‘fighting imperialism’. This narrative loses its weight when examining the much warmer history of Chinese cooperation with the TPLF.
The United States’ Biden administration’s indecisive support for justice in Tigray only further demonstrates its self-interest. Despite Ethiopia not delivering on its 2022 ceasefire agreement, the US has expressed no issue with continuing to make mutually beneficial business deals with the Ethiopian government.
The US State Department continues to designate the TPLF a terrorist-adjacent organization by the US State Department and sanctions its top officials alongside the Ethiopian government. Ethiopia’s smear campaign against the US’s supposed past support for the TPLF appears to be a non-issue when it comes to forming economic partnerships with the North American country. Overall, this accusation has been a major factor in preventing solidarity from forming between the Tigray cause and other progressive factions.
Running Out of Time to Prevent Conflict Expanding to Ethiopia’s Largest Provinces
Three years removed from the ceasefire agreement, the crisis in Tigray has not ended. Ethiopian and Eritrean armed forces have continued to remain in the province. As a result, the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), previously ordered to disarm as a condition of the ceasefire, have not done so. With a lingering food crisis alongside internal political fallout, the situation in Tigray remains uncertain.
What began as armed conflict in the Tigray province now has the potential to spread into three. The new insurgency in Amhara has begun to bleed into the neighbouring Oromia region. While Oromo has seen its own low-level ethnic-based conflict for the past 5 years, a peace deal signed in December of 2024 could be under threat by the increase in conflict. Furthermore, conflict in Tigray between the TPLF and Eritrea has the potential to reignite. Altogether, Abiy’s policies have only continued to spiral Ethiopia into unstable and dangerous territory.
A unified Ethiopia may still be possible, but this potential is fading. Blaming Tigrayans (or any other ethnic group) for the rise in violence has not and will not be an effective strategy in resolving conflict in the Horn of Africa. Without meaningfully addressing the ways that political interests have exploited ethnicity throughout its history, Abiy’s Ethiopia runs the risk of further polarization between its diverse ethnic groups.
This solution does not look like unity for unity’s sake, but rather stresses the solidarity and shared history amongst its population.
It is important to view the situation with nuance, especially since all sides in the conflict have historically been victims of war crimes. It is incorrect, however, to view Ethiopia’s current conflict only through this lens. The Ethiopian and Eritrean states bear the majority of the blame for the violence. If they wish for true accountability for their and the TPLF’s actions, it is their responsibility as nations to allow independent investigations into the country—so far, they have not done so.
Edited by Melanie Miles
