Pro-government Tigray Peace Forces say they control the regional capital after the TPLF withdrew — the sharpest escalation since the 2020–2022 civil war, and one now drawing in Eritrea, Egypt and Sudan.
What happened
Pro-government forces regained control of Mekelle on Sunday, the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, handing a serious military setback to the opposition alliance that has governed the region. The Tigray Peace Forces, a pro-government militia, said on Facebook that its fighters held the city; a source close to the militia told Reuters they entered the centre on Saturday afternoon, followed by the Ethiopian military.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front confirmed the withdrawal, saying in a statement it had retreated from the capital and that the regional government would be “temporarily moved out of Mekelle and operate from somewhere else.” A humanitarian source and a resident of the city, both speaking anonymously, confirmed government forces and their allies held Mekelle.
Why it matters
Mekelle is symbolic as well as strategic. It fell to federal forces in November 2020 early in the previous war, before the TPLF drove them out and pushed toward Addis Ababa. Losing it again — without a fight inside the city, on this account — deprives the alliance of its administrative seat, its main supply node and its strongest bargaining chip.
The TPLF launched a major offensive against the Ethiopian military on 23 September. Federal forces counter-attacked swiftly into Tigray, and analysts warn this is the worst escalation since the 2020–2022 civil war, with real risk of spreading into a wider regional conflict. The 2022 Pretoria peace settlement, which ended that war, has effectively collapsed; mediators have so far failed to restart a process.
The conflict going regional
Ethiopia’s federal government severed diplomatic ties with Eritrea last week, accusing Asmara of supporting the rebel alliance alongside Sudan and Egypt. Ten Eritrean diplomats were declared persona non grata, in response to what Addis Ababa called Eritrea’s “direct and indirect acts of hostility”; Asmara said it had “no choice but to reciprocate in kind.” All three neighbours deny backing the rebels.
Egypt’s foreign minister rejected the accusation outright. “I have to be very clear, we are not party to the domestic crisis facing Ethiopia now. It has nothing to do with us,” Badr Abdelatty told Reuters on Sunday.
He was speaking ahead of talks in Egypt between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his Eritrean and Somali counterparts, with Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also due to attend — a gathering that Addis Ababa will read as the outline of a hostile front.
Underneath sits the dam. Egypt and Ethiopia, two of Africa’s most populous states, have clashed for years over Ethiopia’s filling and operation of the Nile mega-dam, which Cairo regards as a threat to its water supply. “It is an existential issue. It’s life or death for 110 million people,” Abdelatty said.
The human stakes
Mekelle’s fall means a displaced administrative apparatus, and the humanitarian machinery operating from the city is now working without its base. Access, aid convoys and communications into Tigray — already constrained — are the immediate concerns for relief agencies, and renewed displacement is the predictable consequence of a state operating “from somewhere else.” Washington is under domestic pressure to act, with US lawmakers pressing the Trump administration to intervene as fears grow of a return to full-scale civil war. The African Union has called for restraint.
What to watch next
Whether the TPLF regroups in Tigray’s northern and western zones rather than contesting the capital; whether Eritrean forces move, which would convert a domestic war into an interstate one; whether Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan and Somalia convert Sunday’s meeting into coordinated support; and whether any mediator can reconstruct a Pretoria-style process before a front line hardens.
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