Rebel Offensive in Ethiopia Raises Fears of Renewed Civil War

Fears of a return to civil war in Ethiopia have grown after an offensive by rebels from the Tigray region into the neighbouring Afar and Amhara states, alongside the formation of a new rebel coalition aimed at overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The escalation follows years of tension stemming from the 2020-2022 conflict between the Ethiopian federal army and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a political party and paramilitary group, which killed an estimated 600,000 people, one of the deadliest conflicts of the past decade.

Both the Ethiopian government and the rebel side are now accusing each other of triggering the return to open conflict, underscoring the fragility of the arrangement that had brought the earlier war to an end and the deep mistrust that persists between the two sides.

The formation of a new coalition among Tigrayan rebel factions, explicitly aimed at removing Abiy Ahmed's government, marks an escalation beyond the earlier conflict's stated aims and raises the stakes for Ethiopia's political stability, as well as for the wider Horn of Africa region, which has repeatedly been affected by spillover from Ethiopian instability.

The prospect of renewed large-scale fighting carries significant humanitarian risk, given the scale of death, displacement and destruction documented during the previous conflict. International observers and neighbouring governments are likely to watch developments closely, given the precedent of the earlier war's toll and the potential for further regional instability should the fighting expand.