Ethiopia’s Fractured Federation— tigray, Amhara, and the Risk of State Fragmentation

The danger in Ethiopia is not simply that the Pretoria Agreement is weakening. The deeper problem is that the agreement paused the Tigray war without resolving the territorial, security, and constitutional disputes that caused it.

By May 2026, those unresolved questions have moved back to the center of national politics. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front reinstated its pre-war administration, challenged the federally recognized interim authority, and placed Tigray’s post-war settlement in direct confrontation with Addis Ababa.

At the same time, Ethiopia is not facing one crisis but several: Tigray’s internal split, the Fano insurgency in Amhara, continuing insecurity in Oromia, and a shifting regional environment involving Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, and the UAE.

The core question is whether Ethiopia can renegotiate power between the center and the regions before military pressure replaces politics again.

This conflict matters because it links five risks at once:

• State fragmentation: Multiple armed centers are challenging federal authority across Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia.
• Territorial deadlock: Western Tigray/Wolkait remains unresolved, keeping the post-war settlement unstable.
• Humanitarian collapse: Displacement, starvation, unpaid civil servants, and damaged public services have turned political conflict into a survival crisis.
• Proxy spillover: Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, and Gulf actors all have stakes in Ethiopia’s internal balance.
• Red Sea exposure: A destabilized Ethiopia would affect migration, trade routes, and security across the Horn of Africa.

The roots of the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict lie in the long struggle between centralized state authority and ethno-regional demands for autonomy.

Ethiopia’s modern political order has repeatedly swung between centralization and federalism.

The Derg and the Rise of the TPLF

In 1974, the Marxist-Leninist Derg regime overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie.

The Derg imposed a brutal military dictatorship marked by repression, famine, forced resettlement, and counterinsurgency campaigns.

In 1975, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was formed as an ethno-nationalist resistance movement.

The TPLF fought a long guerrilla war against the Derg from the northern highlands.

After roughly 15 years of conflict, a TPLF-led coalition known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front defeated the Derg in 1991.

The Era of Ethnic Federalism

After taking power, the EPRDF created a system of ethnic federalism.

Ethiopia was divided into regional states largely based on language and ethnicity.

In theory, ethnic federalism recognized Ethiopia’s diversity and provided regions with constitutional autonomy.

In practice, the TPLF minority retained enormous influence over:

• The federal government
• The military
• Intelligence services
• The economy
• State-owned enterprises
• Security institutions

For nearly three decades, Ethiopia was formally federal but tightly controlled by the EPRDF’s ruling machinery.

Resentment over TPLF dominance grew among Oromo and Amhara communities.

Mass protests eventually forced Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign in 2018.

The Rise of Abiy Ahmed

Abiy Ahmed, an Oromo politician within the EPRDF system, became prime minister in April 2018.

He initiated sweeping reforms, including:

• Releasing political prisoners
• Opening political space
• Inviting exiled opposition groups to return
• Reforming security institutions
• Making peace with Eritrea

Abiy’s peace deal with Eritrea helped him win the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

However, his reforms also marginalized the TPLF.

In 2019, Abiy dissolved the EPRDF coalition into a new national party called the Prosperity Party.

The TPLF refused to join, viewing the move as an illegal centralization project that threatened ethnic federalism and Tigrayan autonomy.

This dispute became the political foundation for war.

The confrontation escalated after Tigray held regional elections in September 2020, defying a federal decision to postpone elections because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Outbreak of War

On the night of November 3-4, 2020, TPLF-aligned forces attacked the ENDF Northern Command headquarters in Tigray.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive.

The war rapidly expanded into one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century.

The Ethiopian federal government was supported by:

• Eritrean Defence Forces
• Amhara regional forces
• Allied militias
• Drone support and foreign military partnerships

The Tigrayan side mobilized under the Tigray Defense Forces.

Atrocities and Siege Warfare

The war was characterized by extreme brutality.

Reported abuses included:

• Massacres
• Extrajudicial executions
• Sexual violence
• Starvation tactics
• Forced displacement
• Ethnic cleansing
• Destruction of hospitals and schools
• Looting of civilian infrastructure
• Attacks on aid workers and civilians

Massacres in places such as Mai Kadra and Axum became symbols of the war’s brutality.

In Western Tigray, Amhara forces occupied the disputed territory known as Wolkait and were accused of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayans.

The federal government also imposed a severe blockade on Tigray, cutting off food, telecommunications, banking, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian access.

This produced famine-like conditions and catastrophic civilian suffering.

The Pretoria Agreement

After shifting frontlines and staggering casualties, the federal government and TPLF signed the Pretoria Agreement on November 2, 2022.

The agreement called for:

• Cessation of hostilities
• Disarmament of Tigrayan forces
• Restoration of federal authority
• Humanitarian access
• Formation of an Interim Regional Administration
• Political dialogue
• Restoration of services

However, the agreement had major weaknesses.

It excluded Eritrea, did not resolve the status of disputed territories, left accountability unclear, and did not fully settle the question of Tigrayan security forces.

The agreement paused full-scale war, but it did not solve the conflict.

The Pretoria Agreement created a ceasefire but failed to resolve Ethiopia’s underlying political, territorial, and security disputes.

By May 2026, those unresolved issues had pushed the country toward renewed confrontation.

Tigray’s Internal Schism and May 2026 Crisis

The TPLF split into two broad camps.

One faction, associated with pragmatists in the Interim Regional Administration, operated under Getachew Reda.

Another faction, known as the Old Guard, was led by Debretsion Gebremichael.

Tensions culminated in May 2026, when the TPLF-led regional council rejected the federal extension of the interim administration.

The council reinstated the pre-war government and declared Debretsion regional president.

This created rival political administrations in Tigray and placed the Pretoria framework under direct threat.

Federal Pressure and Renewed Clashes

The federal government retaliated by increasing administrative, financial, and military pressure.

Reported federal measures included:

• Suspending regional budgets
• Withholding 8.5 billion birr
• Halting salaries for more than 141,000 civil servants
• Paralyzing health and education services
• Banning the TPLF from upcoming elections through the National Election Board of Ethiopia
• Removing Tigray’s oversight over five contested electoral districts

At the same time, renewed clashes occurred in border and disputed areas.

A new armed splinter group, the Tigray Peace Force, emerged.

The group is reportedly composed of ex-combatants opposing TPLF dominance and has clashed with Tigrayan security forces.

This marks a dangerous new phase of intra-Tigrayan violence.

The Amhara and Oromia Fronts

The federal government is also fighting major insurgencies outside Tigray.

In Amhara, the federal attempt to dissolve regional special forces triggered the rise of the Fano insurgency in 2023.

Fano militants accuse the federal government of betraying Amhara interests, especially over the status of Western Tigray.

Fano fighters reportedly control large rural areas and contest major towns, engaging in repeated clashes with the ENDF.

In Oromia, the Oromo Liberation Army continues a long-running insurgency.

The OLA’s war with federal forces has caused displacement, civilian deaths, and severe insecurity across parts of Ethiopia’s largest region.

Together, the Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia crises stretch federal military capacity and weaken the Ethiopian state.

Geopolitical Realignment

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s earlier alliance with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has reportedly collapsed.

In a striking reversal, Eritrea has allegedly developed a clandestine alignment with TPLF hardliners, sometimes referred to as Tsimdo, against Abiy’s government.

This realignment intersects with the Sudanese Civil War.

Reported alignments include:

• Ethiopia and the UAE leaning toward the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan
• Eritrea and Egypt backing or aligning with the Sudanese Armed Forces
• Regional actors using Ethiopia’s crisis to strengthen their own strategic positions

The danger is that Ethiopia’s internal conflict becomes part of a wider Horn of Africa proxy war.

Humanitarian Impact

The humanitarian impact is staggering.

Reported impacts include:

• An estimated 600,000 deaths linked to violence, famine, and health system collapse
• Widespread sexual violence and rape used as weapons of war
• Ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray
• Forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans
• More than 900,000 internally displaced persons in Tigray alone
• Starvation as a leading cause of death in camps such as Hitsats
• Severe aid cuts
• Near-collapse of regional health systems
• More than 90% of health facilities in affected areas damaged, looted, or destroyed
• Deepening humanitarian needs across Tigray, Amhara, Afar, and Oromia

The crisis is not limited to Tigray.

The Fano insurgency in Amhara and the OLA insurgency in Oromia have expanded insecurity, displacement, and civilian suffering across much of the country.

Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis is especially dangerous because it is being compounded by federal budget cuts, aid funding reductions, food insecurity, and renewed military mobilization.

Economic Impact

Ethiopia’s economy has been severely weakened by overlapping wars and political instability.

Key reported effects include:

• Rebuilding costs in Tigray, Afar, and Amhara estimated above USD 20 billion
• Endemic inflation averaging above 30%
• Delayed IMF-backed reforms
• Disruption of agriculture and trade
• Damage to roads, schools, hospitals, and public infrastructure
• Federal budget cuts to Tigray
• Withholding of 8.5 billion birr
• Salary suspensions affecting more than 141,000 civil servants
• Collapse of public services in conflict-affected areas

The federal strangulation of Tigray’s budget has accelerated institutional collapse.

When civil servants are unpaid and health and education systems stop functioning, political conflict rapidly becomes a civilian survival crisis.

Geopolitical Impact

The conflict is reshaping the Horn of Africa.

Major geopolitical effects include:

• Strained relations between Ethiopia and Western governments over human rights abuses
• Collapse of the Abiy-Isaias alliance
• Alleged Eritrea-TPLF hardliner alignment
• UAE support for Ethiopia’s federal government
• Egypt and Eritrea moving closer through shared concerns over Ethiopia
• Sudan’s civil war interacting with Ethiopia’s internal conflicts
• Growing risk of refugee flows across borders
• Potential destabilization of the Red Sea corridor

A fragmented Ethiopia would be a regional shock.

As Africa’s second most populous country, Ethiopia’s destabilization would affect migration, food security, counterterrorism, Red Sea trade, and the balance of power across the Horn of Africa.

The Ethiopia-Tigray crisis is not merely a regional dispute.

It is a structural crisis involving:

• Ethnic federalism
• Centralization
• Regional autonomy
• Territorial disputes
• Insurgency
• State violence
• Sexual violence
• Starvation tactics
• Humanitarian blockade
• Proxy politics
• Red Sea security
• State fragmentation

The central danger is that Ethiopia’s political system is losing its ability to mediate disputes between center and region.

The federal government argues that it must preserve national unity, disarm armed groups, and prevent regional fragmentation.

Regional forces argue that federal centralization threatens their survival, autonomy, culture, and political rights.

The failure of the Pretoria Agreement shows the limits of elite-level peace deals that postpone territorial disputes, exclude key actors, and avoid transitional justice.

Without a credible political settlement, Ethiopia risks renewed war in Tigray, deeper insurgency in Amhara and Oromia, and wider regional escalation involving Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, and the UAE.