The Tigray National Regional Government said the conflict began on Sept. 23, when Tigrayan forces responded to what they described as an intensified “invasion” by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration, marking the collapse of the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement that ended a four‑year civil war.

The 2020‑2022 war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and federal forces claimed hundreds of thousands of lives before the peace accord was signed. In the months that followed, animosity grew, culminating last Sunday in the TPLF’s announcement of an alliance with six other armed groups across Ethiopia aimed at toppling Abiy’s government.

In a statement, the Tigray regional administration accused Abiy’s “autocratic and genocidal Prosperity regime” of using “various methods” to attack the people of Tigray and said the Tigray Forces had been instructed to counter the assault and had entered a defensive war.

Getachew Reda, an adviser to Abiy and former TPLF official, posted on X that the TPLF had seized control of federally‑run airports in Tigray and launched an “all‑out offensive” against government positions in the adjacent Afar and Amhara regions.

Four sources – a senior Ethiopian government official, a diplomatic source, a humanitarian source and a source linked to the TPLF and an allied militia – confirmed that fighting is now taking place in all three regions. In Afar, Tigrayan fighters are reportedly operating alongside a local armed group, while in Amhara they are fighting alongside the Fano militia, which had supported the federal side in the 2020‑22 war but has since turned against it and joined the new alliance.

The federal government has accused the TPLF of breaching the Pretoria Agreement and deliberately creating chaos. Spokesperson Billene Seyoum told Reuters that members of the newly announced alliance have been collaborating for some time with financial backing from Ethiopia’s historic rival, Eritrea, a claim Eritrea has repeatedly denied.

Both the federal government and the TPLF declined to comment immediately on the latest developments.