Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of cross-border incursion into Tigray as conflict widens

Eritrean troops are said to have crossed the border to support rebels in Tigray. Ethiopian troops are themselves advancing there.

The war is expanding: a burnt-out ammunition truck in the Tigray region. Photo: Reuters

By Dominic Johnson

The new civil war in Ethiopia, which broke out nearly three weeks ago, is expanding into an international conflict. Eritrea, whose government politically supports the Ethiopian rebels, sent its army across the border last week to also provide military support to the insurgent Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray.

The action was intended to prevent Ethiopia's army from completely conquering Tigray. The northern Ethiopian region had once again seceded from the Ethiopian central state in 2025 – it is governed by the former guerrilla movement TPLF, which had already fought a bloody war against Ethiopia's government from 2020 to 2022. On September 20, the TPLF, together with allies in other parts of the country, founded a rebel alliance that launched attacks on September 23. Within just a few days, however, the tide turned: the TPLF withdrew from Tigray's capital Mekelle without a fight, leaving it to the advancing Ethiopian armed forces.

Together with loyal Tigray militiamen, Ethiopia's army has since occupied further locations in Tigray, while the Tigray rebels retreated north to the border with Eritrea. According to Ethiopian reports, the TPLF leadership even fled entirely to Eritrea.

As in all phases of this war, there is a great deal of contradictory information. According to independent analyses, between 5,000 and 8,000 Eritrean soldiers crossed the border into Tigray last week – the exact timing is disputed – moving south toward Mekelle with armored vehicles and reaching the city of Adigrat before being stopped by Ethiopian drone strikes and withdrawing. Since Saturday, Ethiopian soldiers have been stationed in Adigrat. Whether they have also reached the historic monastery city of Axum further west remained unclear on Sunday.

Mutual Accusations

Ethiopia and Eritrea are trading public accusations. In a letter to the United Nations on Friday, the Ethiopian government spoke of a "flagrant aggression" against which it was exercising its "inherent right to self-defense," and on Saturday demanded that the UN Security Council condemn Eritrea.

Eritrea's government, for its part, demanded the condemnation of Ethiopia. On Saturday, in its response to the UN, it spoke of a "declaration of war" by Ethiopia, which allegedly intends to carry out "its long-planned project of an invasion of Eritrea." This refers to the allegation that Ethiopia wants to annex the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea in order to obtain its own access to the sea.

Ethiopia lost its access to the sea when Eritrea became independent in 1993. Together with the Tigray rebels of the TPLF, Eritrean liberation fighters had previously overthrown Ethiopia's government. However, Ethiopia's new TPLF-led government and the new state of Eritrea quickly fell out and fought a bloody war against each other from 1998 to 2000 over their ill-defined border in the mountains of Tigray, which ended with an Eritrean defeat and a UN-brokered peace agreement that was only partially implemented.

When Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in Ethiopia in 2018, he made peace with Eritrea, and both governments jointly fought a TPLF uprising in Tigray from 2020 to 2022. Now, however, the TPLF and Eritrea have come together again – although the crimes committed by Eritrean soldiers against the Tigrayan civilian population during the 2020–2022 war are still very present among the people. There are growing reports that many Tigrayans now reject the TPLF because it is operating together with the hated Eritrea, and that, unlike in the last war, they now welcome the advance of Ethiopia's army.

At the same time, however, concern is growing about direct fighting between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some view the fact that both governments are turning to the UN as a positive signal. "By first calling on the UN to ensure the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopian territory, Ethiopia shows that it wants to exercise restraint for now rather than start a full-scale war," writes analyst René Lefort. UN Secretary-General António Guterres had previously expressed "deep concern" about the situation in the region in a statement.

Related articles:

• Conflict in the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia and Eritrea on the Brink of War – While Ethiopia's army advances in the Tigray region, Ethiopia's opponents gather in Egypt. Eritrea breaks off diplomatic relations. By Dominic Johnson
• New War in Ethiopia: A Wildfire in Africa – Commentary by Dominic Johnson. The war in Ethiopia threatens to expand into a regional war across the entire northeast of Africa. There would be ways to do something about it.
• New Civil War in Ethiopia: A Ruthless Fight for "Peace" and "Survival" – War has broken out again in Ethiopia, and Tigray's TPLF rebels have once again risen up. This time they are supported by Sudan and Eritrea. By Dominic Johnson