Tigray rebel forces seize Ethiopia regional airport

Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters arrive after eight hours of walking in Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia, on June 29, 2021. [AFP]

Tigrayan rebel forces in northern Ethiopia have seized control of the airport in the regional capital, security and local sources told AFP on Wednesday, at a time of rising tensions with the federal government.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region, fought a devastating civil war with the federal government in 2020-2022 that killed some 600,000 people, according to African Union estimates.

Sporadic clashes in recent months have raised fears of a return to war.

"While we were on our way to the airport for work, our supervisor called the driver and told him that the airport had been taken over by Tigray forces. Since there were no flights, he told us to return home," an employee at Alula Aba Nega Airport in the Tigrayan capital Mekelle told AFP.

The information was confirmed by a foreign security source based in Ethiopia.

A small number of federal police guard the airport, and their condition was unknown.

Flight Radar, an air traffic tracker, showed that Wednesday morning's flight between Mekelle and the federal capital, Addis Ababa, had been cancelled.

"Ethiopian Airlines has temporarily suspended flights to Mekele, Axum, and Shire effective today, due to the current situation in the Tigray region," the national carrier said in a statement.

On Sunday, the TPLF was announced as a member of a new alliance of anti-government armed groups from across the country.

Ethiopia faces a myriad of insurgencies, including in its most populous regions, Oromia and Amhara.

The TPLF ruled the whole of Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018 before being sidelined with the rise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, eventually triggering the civil war.

The Pretoria Peace Agreement ended the war and maintained an uneasy calm until late 2025, when clashes resumed.

The federal government has since launched multiple drone strikes in Tigray and massed troops at the regional border.

Rights groups have accused the TPLF of a campaign of forced recruitment this year as it prepares for renewed conflict.

The region has not recovered from the last war, with around one million people still displaced and many aspects of the peace agreement still unfulfilled.

Ethiopian authorities have accused the TPLF of allying with neighbouring Eritrea, as well as Ethiopian armed groups.

The federal government has a significant military advantage, having ramped up production of military drones since the last conflict.