Ethiopia's Tigray offensive pushes toward Eritrea as the row with Sudan turns diplomatic

Ethiopia's federal army has moved its war against Tigrayan forces closer to the Eritrean border, as residents of Mekele, the regional capital, face a military deadline today to hand in unlicensed firearms. The fighting in the north is now unfolding alongside a sharp diplomatic rupture with Sudan, which accuses Addis Ababa of letting the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary launch drone attacks from Ethiopian soil.

The Ethiopian National Defense Force entered Sheraro, a town about 60 miles northwest of Shire, on 3 November after roughly three weeks of attempts, according to the Critical Threats Project and the conflict monitor ACLED. ACLED said Eritrean troops and the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF), the armed wing of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, had left the town on 12 October, after which no side held it while federal forces controlled the surrounding area. Open-source mappers cited by Critical Threats reported that the army also took Adi Awala, about 20 miles northeast of Sheraro on the main road to the Eritrean border town of Badme.

Badme carries heavy symbolic weight. It was the flashpoint of the 1998 to 2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war, and its status was central to the peace deal that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed with Eritrea in 2018. Federal troops moving along that road, at a time of open hostility between Addis Ababa and Asmara, raise the stakes of every clash near the border.

## Fighting along the border and in the interior

Further east, fighting between federal forces and the TDF continued near the frontier. ACLED reported the army deploying troops from Adwa to Rama, about 20 miles north near the Eritrean border, on 5 and 6 November amid a TDF presence there. Wazema Radio reported clashes around the border area of Egela on 2 and 3 November. Earlier claims by conflict trackers and a pro-government Tigrayan official that federal forces had also exchanged fire with Eritrean troops around Egela could not be confirmed by Critical Threats.

In Tigray's interior, federal forces and the government-backed Tigray Peace Force fought the TDF around Bizet, west of Adigrat, from 1 to 3 November. Critical Threats, citing ACLED and other sources, reported that federal forces captured Colonel Haile Selassie Assefa, head of the TDF's Army 15 contingent, and killed Colonel Semere Teklu, reported to have led its Army 92 contingent. Those claims come largely from federal-aligned and open-source accounts and have not been confirmed by the TDF.

The war is not confined to Tigray. In northern Amhara, the Fano militia and the army have traded control of towns on the A2 highway between Dessie and Woldia. Fano reportedly seized Wuchale on 2 November, and the army retook it and nearby Girana on 3 and 4 November, according to Wazema and Critical Threats. The A2 is the main road north toward Tigray, which makes it a federal supply line.

## Mekele under military rule

Mekele has been held by the army and the Tigray Peace Force since TPLF forces withdrew in early October. On 5 November the military announced a night-time vehicle curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., ordered residents to surrender unlicensed firearms to the Tigray regional police within three days, and said it would carry out house-to-house searches during daylight hours, Wazema reported. The army blamed insecurity in the city on prisoners it says the TPLF released before leaving and on organised criminal groups. Today's deadline marks the point at which those searches can begin in earnest.

The federal government is also presenting a disarmament track. State media reported that 5,500 former TDF fighters are going through a demobilisation and reintegration programme at a facility in Mekele, which officials showed to UN and diplomatic visitors on 5 November.

The background is the unravelling of the 2022 Pretoria agreement that ended the last Tigray war. A US Congressional Research Service report notes that the deal linked TDF disarmament to the withdrawal of Eritrean and Amhara forces, which the federal government never enforced, and that fighting resumed in early August this year before escalating.

## Sudan's accusation

The northern war now overlaps with Sudan's. On 1 November Sudan's foreign ministry lodged complaints with the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, accusing Ethiopia of allowing the RSF to launch drone attacks on army-held territory from Ethiopian soil. A Sudanese government report alleges about 70 such attacks between February and October 2026, including from the airports at Asosa and Bahir Dar, according to Al Jazeera and Critical Threats. These are Sudan's allegations and have not been independently verified.

Ethiopia responded on 4 November by expelling six Sudanese consular staff and ordering the closure of Sudan's consulate in Asosa, the capital of Benishangul-Gumuz, AP reported. Sudan's army-backed government answered by closing Ethiopia's consulate in Gedaref and giving its diplomats 48 hours to leave, Anadolu reported.

China is trying to cool at least one front. Its special envoy for African affairs, Liu Xianfa, met Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos on 4 November, and its Horn of Africa envoy, Hu Changchun, met Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki the next day. Neither side has softened in public. Eritrea's UN ambassador, Sophia Tesfamariam, said dialogue depended on Ethiopia renouncing "coercion, threats, and the use of force", while Ethiopian State Minister Hadera Abera accused Eritrea of continued incursions and support for rebel groups.

The danger for the region is that these disputes stop being separate. Ethiopia is fighting in Tigray and Amhara, faces a hostile Eritrea on its northern border, and now has a formal quarrel with a Sudanese government at war with the RSF on its western one. Each conflict gives a neighbour a reason to back the other's enemies. What happens on the road to Badme, and whether the UN and AU take up Sudan's complaint, will show how close the Horn is to a wider war.