The Tigray People’s Liberation Front declared Sunday that it is reasserting direct control over Tigray’s regional government, a dramatic move that effectively tears apart the peace agreement that halted one of the deadliest conflicts in recent African history. The announcement, delivered via a Facebook post, signals a potentially catastrophic breakdown in the fragile post-war order established between the TPLF and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The TPLF’s central committee voted to reinstate the Tigray Government Assembly — the region’s suspended parliament — which had been dissolved as a core condition of the 2022 Pretoria Agreement. That accord, brokered through African Union mediation, ended a war that killed at least 600,000 people and displaced approximately 5 million more over two years of brutal fighting.
The front levelled a series of serious accusations against Addis Ababa, charging the federal government with withholding funds needed to pay local civil servants, deliberately provoking armed conflict within the region, and systematically violating the terms of the Pretoria accord. Clashes had already erupted in Tigray in January, and at least one person was killed in drone strikes in the northern region, underscoring the fragility of the peace.
Getachew Reda, the TPLF’s former spokesman who now serves as an adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, characterised the declaration as "a clear repudiation" of the post-war governance structure the Pretoria Agreement created. His remarks highlight the depth of the rupture — a senior figure straddling both camps now openly acknowledging the accord’s collapse.
The roots of the conflict stretch back to 2018, when Abiy Ahmed’s appointment as prime minister ended the TPLF’s near-three-decade dominance over Ethiopian federal politics. The TPLF, a rebel movement that had transformed into the country’s ruling political force, found itself increasingly marginalised. Tensions escalated into open warfare in 2020, drawing in the Eritrean army alongside federal forces in a campaign that devastated Tigray’s infrastructure and population. The war ceased in late 2022 only after sustained African Union mediation produced the Pretoria Agreement, which called for an interim administration to govern Tigray until new elections could be organised.
That interim arrangement has now been repudiated. The TPLF’s move to restore its own legislative assembly directly contradicts the agreement’s central architecture, and the federal government has yet to publicly outline its response to the declaration.
The political rupture arrives at a moment of acute humanitarian vulnerability for Tigray. Up to 80 percent of the region’s population requires emergency support, according to humanitarian organisations, and the region’s health system is already buckling under severe funding shortfalls. Compounding the crisis, US President Donald Trump implemented sweeping cuts to the US Agency for International Development, which had been Ethiopia’s largest source of humanitarian aid. The withdrawal of that support has left an enormous gap in relief operations across the region.
The combination of renewed political instability, sporadic armed clashes, and a collapsing aid architecture raises urgent questions about Tigray’s trajectory. A region that endured years of siege, mass displacement, and widespread atrocities now faces the prospect of renewed confrontation — this time without the international financial architecture that sustained its fragile recovery.
The TPLF’s decision to act unilaterally, bypassing the transitional framework it had agreed to, reflects the front’s calculation that the Pretoria Agreement had already been rendered hollow by federal non-compliance. Whether Addis Ababa responds with negotiation, economic pressure, or force will determine whether Sunday’s announcement marks the beginning of a new political crisis or the opening move in a return to armed conflict.
International observers and regional bodies, including the African Union, face renewed pressure to intervene diplomatically before the situation deteriorates further. The Pretoria Agreement was widely hailed as a landmark achievement for African-led conflict resolution; its collapse would represent a significant setback for the continent’s mediation credibility at a moment when multiple African conflicts are testing regional institutions.
