Eritrean troops surge into Ethiopia's Tigray as regional conflict reignites

Residents of Adigrat, a town in Ethiopia's Tigray region, began reporting in early October that military convoys were moving through their streets heading south. The trucks, they said, carried soldiers from Eritrea—a neighboring country that had fought alongside Ethiopia's federal army during a devastating civil war that ended in 2022. Now, after months of fragile peace, those soldiers were back, and the region was bracing for what might come next.

The immediate trigger was straightforward enough. Fighting had erupted two weeks earlier between Ethiopia's national army and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the political party that governs the Tigray region. Both sides accused the other of breaking a ceasefire agreement signed four years prior. The TPLF had recently joined a new alliance of armed groups opposed to the federal government, and the situation had deteriorated rapidly. By the weekend before the Eritrean deployment was reported, federal forces had taken control of Mekelle, Tigray's largest city, forcing TPLF fighters to withdraw.

What made the Eritrean intervention significant was the history it carried. During the 2020-2022 war, Eritrea had been Ethiopia's crucial military partner, fighting directly against the TPLF in a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands and pushed the Tigray region toward famine. But the two countries' relationship had fractured since then, largely over the Ethiopian prime minister's push to gain control of one of Eritrea's Red Sea ports. By the time fighting resumed in Tigray, the two nations had severed diplomatic relations entirely, raising the prospect of a much wider regional conflict.

The eyewitness accounts from Adigrat painted a picture of substantial military movement. One resident, speaking anonymously for safety, told the BBC he had seen approximately forty trucks loaded with soldiers moving south through the town. Another described witnessing twenty to thirty large trucks the following morning, some carrying heavy weapons including anti-aircraft guns, with additional troops moving on foot. A third account, relayed through someone in Mekelle who had spoken to relatives in Adigrat, suggested the numbers were even larger—up to sixty trucks of soldiers who were then deployed in mountainous terrain near Edaga Hamus, a town positioned between Adigrat and Mekelle. Social media images appeared to show heavily laden military vehicles, though the BBC could not independently verify them.

The route the convoys were taking suggested a coordinated military operation. Eritrean troops had crossed from the border town of Zalambessa and were moving toward central Tigray, passing through Adigrat and heading toward Edaga Hamus and possibly Wukro, another strategic town along the corridor connecting the region's key population centers. Meanwhile, federal forces and allied fighters had entered Wukro on Wednesday after heavy weapons exchanges fifteen kilometers to the south. A resident of Edaga Hamus reported seeing Eritrean troops pass through and described drone strikes targeting soldiers in the area.

The emotional weight of this deployment was immediate and raw. Many Tigrayans carried memories of what Eritrean soldiers had allegedly done during the previous war—atrocities that had left deep scars. One Adigrat resident described the distress of seeing them return: the memories were still fresh, the pain still close to the surface. People in the town were saddened and frightened by their reappearance. A resident of Edaga Hamus expressed similar anxiety about what their presence might mean.

Ethiopian officials made no attempt to hide Eritrea's involvement. Abraham Belay, a senior government official, told a private television station that Eritrean forces had entered the conflict with full military capacity and logistics support. He acknowledged that Eritrean soldiers had been killed and captured, and he warned of retaliation, saying Eritrea would learn the cost of crossing into another country to fight alongside what he called bandits. The language was stark and suggested the conflict was hardening into something larger than a domestic political dispute.

The BBC was unable to report directly from Tigray and surrounding areas, relying instead on accounts from residents and sources in the region. Mobile phone and internet connections had been restored to most areas after federal forces took Mekelle, allowing some communication to flow out. But the inability to independently verify troop movements, casualty figures, or the full scope of military operations meant significant gaps remained in the picture. What was clear was that a conflict thought to be contained had suddenly expanded, and a country that had been an ally was now a combatant again.