Ethiopia's Alliance for Survival: The Push for Transition

Sudan's army rejected Ethiopia's claim that it is backing the armed groups fighting federal troops, countering that Addis Ababa is itself facilitating operations by the Rapid Support Forces — an accusation Khartoum has pressed since relations deteriorated sharply in May. An informed Egyptian source had already dismissed allegations of Cairo's involvement on 26 September.

On the ground the Afar front remained the most active. Its weight is strategic: an advance through Afar threatens the corridor from Djibouti that carries virtually all of Ethiopia's international trade, including fuel.

The opening week has left the 2022 Pretoria agreement in severe strain. Its provisions were never fully implemented — the interim administration for Tigray was never established, and around one million people displaced by the last war remain unable to return home. Coalition figures argue that the renewed fighting follows from that failure, not from any collapse of their own commitment to a political settlement.

Tigrayan forces captured the Afar border town of Erebti on 27 September after heavy artillery bombardment, then pushed east toward Afdera, roughly 100 kilometres away. A humanitarian source told AFP that at least 150,000 people had been displaced in Afar, while cautioning that no precise figure was possible.

In Mekelle, the headquarters of Tigrai TV — the key broadcast outlet of the Tigray authorities, with around 400 employees — was hit by a drone strike. A journalist at the station told AFP the blast forced staff to flee the building, and photographs showed the facade blackened with windows blown out. The station went off air; no casualties were immediately reported. The federal government had announced on 21 September that Tigrai TV was suspended “indefinitely” and had barred other outlets from carrying its reports.

Ethiopia's army chief, speaking on the army's own channel, said the forces his troops are fighting could not have mounted their offensive without outside supply and support, and described the alliance as an extension of a long pattern of hostile alignments. Coalition figures have rejected that characterisation, saying their contacts abroad amount to political relationships rather than foreign sponsorship. The federal government's own advantages remain substantial — a large drone arsenal, around 500,000 troops and backing from abroad, notably the United Arab Emirates.

Four days into the offensive, the coalition's military weight was concentrated in the north. Tigrayan forces, the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Afar organisation ARDUF were fighting along overlapping axes from the Tigray-Afar border through North Wello and Wag Hemra. Analysts assessed that cooperation as grounded in overlapping immediate interests rather than a single unified command, and as of 24 September no coordinated operations had been recorded by the OLA, ONLF, BPLM or GPDM, even though the coalition said all of its members were conducting counterattacks.

The movements carry their own histories. The AFNM and Tigrayan forces fought on opposite sides in the 2020-2022 war; the OLA spent years fighting the TPLF-dominated government that preceded Abiy; the ONLF's leadership inside Ethiopia denies joining at all. Coalition figures present the charter as the answer: remove the government, run a transitional administration, hold a constitutional dialogue, then hold elections.

What is not in dispute is the displacement the region was already carrying. Roughly one million people remain displaced from the last war, and the UN migration agency had counted about three-quarters of a million people displaced inside Tigray before this offensive began. Regional analysts warn that the fighting risks drawing Ethiopia's neighbours in.

The United Nations said on 25 September that it remained gravely concerned by the deterioration of the security situation across northern Ethiopia. Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the UN was “particularly troubled by reports of the use of drones as well as incidents of harm to civilians”, and repeated the call for maximum restraint and dialogue. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was engaging leaders in New York, and his special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Guang Cong, was coordinating with the African Union and IGAD to support a resumption of dialogue under the 2022 Pretoria agreement.

The humanitarian position worsened with the fighting. Internet and telephone services were largely cut across Tigray and roads were blocked in parts of Afar, pausing planned aid movements and constraining operations in Amhara. On 22 September a drone strike in north-western Tigray had hit a truck carrying food assistance for displaced people.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said again that he was deeply alarmed, and cited reports that an ENDF mortar strike killed civilians in Kobo, Amhara. His statement also carried a serious allegation against the coalition's most powerful member: he deplored what he described as an ongoing campaign of forced mass recruitment of civilians, including children, by the TPLF across Tigray, and reprisals against those who resist it. The UN urged all parties to protect civilians and to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access.

As fighting widened on 24 September, the alliance issued a statement saying the federal government was attacking its member forces on several fronts and presenting its members' response as part of the struggle that had brought them together. In Tigray, TPLF central committee member Addisalem Balema told Al Jazeera the situation had become a “full war”, and set out the coalition's programme: “We have a political charter, and our aim is to remove the personalist regime of Abiy Ahmed, establish a transitional government, hold a constitutional dialogue and move to elections.”

He was candid about why the movements had set aside old enmities: “We've been forced to ally with other movements who also face an existential threat from the government. We don't want a repeat of 2020 when we were encircled and alone.”

He also acknowledged unresolved disputes inside the coalition, including competing claims over western Tigray, saying members had agreed to settle them through dialogue. Not every member has moved at the same pace: OLA leader Jaal Marroo had described the agreement in the preceding days as a “procedural consensus” rather than a substantive settlement on Ethiopia's political future, and the ONLF leadership inside Ethiopia's Somali region denies joining the alliance, although the faction that signed says it now regards its 2018 peace deal with the government as void. The regional bloc IGAD called for hostilities to cease and direct dialogue to resume.

On the night of 22-23 September Tigrayan forces took control of the airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire, and Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to all three cities. Fronts opened at Kobo-Tumuga, where Tigrayan and Amhara Fano forces fought jointly, along the Zata-Dinqa-Sekota axis, and at Tonsa on the Afar border.

The federal government's account came from Getachew Reda, an adviser to the prime minister, who said the TPLF had “launched an all-out offensive against government positions in Afar and Amhara”. The Tigray regional government said federal troops had bombarded it on 22 September with aircraft, drones and artillery.

Reuters reported, citing government and diplomatic sources, that Tigrayan forces were fighting alongside Fano in Amhara. The UN Secretary-General said he was gravely concerned by the airport seizures and the spread of fighting beyond Tigray, and the African Union said the seizures were inconsistent with the 2022 Pretoria agreement. The ENDF said it had repelled attacks across seven localities in North Wello, killing 272 and wounding 260 — figures that remain unverified.

Federal aircraft, drones and artillery struck southern Tigray on 22 September. Between 15 and 17 strikes hit Alamata, damaging several schools and a hospital; Tigrayan authorities reported 14 people killed and 22 wounded. The UN human rights office subsequently confirmed that airstrikes by the Ethiopian National Defence Force, some carried out with drones, hit five schools in Tigray that day.

Late the same day fighting reopened along the Tigray-Afar border at Abala and Erebti, and Tigrayan forces were reported to have taken Abala, a district capital. The Tigray regional government said it was countering a “genocidal invasion” and that its army had entered a defensive battle; the TPLF later described the federal operation as a full-scale offensive involving infantry, mechanised units and drones.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said he was deeply alarmed by the escalation and the harm already being done to civilians, and urged all parties to de-escalate rather than allow a return to full-scale war.

The Ethiopian Media Authority suspended Tigrai TV indefinitely on 21 September, the day after the station carried the Alliance for Survival's founding proclamation, and ordered other Ethiopian broadcast, print and digital outlets not to rebroadcast or cite its content. The authority announced the decision in an Amharic statement published on its Facebook page, saying the suspension would remain in force indefinitely.

The regulator accused the station of repeated violations of Ethiopia's broadcasting law and professional standards and of airing material that incited conflict, encouraged extremism and threatened public safety and national interests. It did not publish the broadcasts it was responding to, and set no date for reviewing the order. The Reporter, an Ethiopian outlet, recorded the timing without embellishment: the suspension came immediately in the wake of the 20 September announcement of the seven-group alliance.

Tigrai TV is the principal broadcast outlet of the Tigray authorities. With the order in force, the founding declaration that had been read on the station on 20 September can no longer be rebroadcast by any Ethiopian outlet.

Seven armed and political organisations announced the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival on 20 September, formally committing themselves to removing the Prosperity Party-led federal government and establishing an inclusive transitional administration.

The founding proclamation was read by Zemene Kassie, chairman of the Amhara Fano National Movement. It joined movements rooted in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz in a single coalition: the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the Oromo Liberation Army, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an Afar armed organisation, the Benishangul People's Liberation Movement and the Gumuz People's Democratic Movement.

The groups had been converging for roughly a year, and the declaration turned an alignment Ethiopian officials had long dismissed as “Tsimdo” into a published coalition with a political charter. Its members describe a programme that runs beyond the removal of the government: a transitional administration, a constitutional dialogue and elections. Each member retains its own command and unresolved disputes remain, including competing claims over western Tigray, which TPLF officials say the alliance has agreed to settle through dialogue.