The fighting follows a year of growing tensions between the federal government and the Tigray authorities. Militia forces in Ethiopia often refer to community security personnel who are not part of the regular police forces of the region. While a shutdown of internet and phone communications, as well as severe access restrictions to the Tigray region have limited the ability of independent monitors and journalists to document and report on the hostilities and the human rights situation in Tigray, information on the parties involved, and their capacity has slowly emerged.Įthiopian government military forces, reportedly alongside Amhara regional special forces and Amhara militias, are engaged in hostilities with Tigray regional forces. Aside from administering and governing the Tigray region, the TPLF also purportedly controls a large regional paramilitary police force as well as local militia, which the Ethiopian Constitution allows by empowering regional states to establish and administer police and security in their respective regions. The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for almost three decades as part of a ruling coalition, which was responsible for serious human rights violations, before Abiy assumed office in April 2018. In a televised broadcast days later, Abiy announced that the Ethiopian military had destroyed weaponry near Mekelle. Subsequent to launching military operations, the Prime Minister’s Office also announced a six-month state of emergency throughout the Tigray region. The TPLF, the ruling party administering the northern region of Tigray in Ethiopia, acknowledged that it took over the assets of the Ethiopian military’s Northern Command based in Tigray.

On November 4, 2020, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appeared on state television and acknowledged that he ordered the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) to commence operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in response to what he described as attacks by TPLF forces on Ethiopian military bases and federal forces in the regional capital of Mekelle, and at other camps in the Tigray region.

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