Troops reported inside Tigray

Reports on Wednesday said Eritrean troops had crossed the border and advanced into northern Tigray, the region where the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has been fighting Ethiopian federal forces since 23 September. Images geolocated by France 24 show men in uniform in at least two trucks in Edaga Hamus, a town in Tigray more than 50 kilometres from the Eritrean border. Plates visible on at least two of the trucks match Eritrean transport vehicles rather than Tigray state plates, France 24 reported. A person who photographed the convoy told the broadcaster that it carried Eritrean soldiers. RFI reported soldiers on patrol at Rama and around Sheraro, both close to the border, and at Fatsi near Adigrat, 40 kilometres from the frontier.

How the conflict got here

Hostilities resumed on 23 September between the Ethiopian army and groups opposed to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government, including the TPLF, which had governed Tigray since April and defied federal authority, according to RFI. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing the rebels, and Eritrea has consistently denied it. Eritrea and Ethiopia fought together against the TPLF during the 2020 to 2022 civil war, but relations deteriorated, and AFP reports that Eritrea fears Ethiopia, a landlocked country, plans to invade its territory to gain direct access to the Red Sea. The two countries also fought a border war between 1998 and 2000, AFP noted. Eritrea broke diplomatic relations with Ethiopia on 1 October, France 24 reported. BBC Somali reported that TPLF forces had withdrawn from Mekelle, the largest city in Tigray and 115 kilometres south of Adigrat, which government forces now hold.

Drone strikes and accusations

AFP, citing witnesses and the ACLED monitoring group, reported that Ethiopian drones carried out several strikes overnight on Eritrean forces and ammunition in Adigrat. An eyewitness who asked not to be named told AFP that a very large number of drone strikes hit the area, destroying some Eritrean trucks that are no longer on the streets. Neither Asmara nor Addis Ababa had responded to queries about the situation in northern Ethiopia at the time of the AFP report. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel denounced on X what he called 'a fallacious narrative of self-defence' from the Ethiopian government, which he said was used to justify a 'war of aggression' that Ethiopia intends to wage against Eritrea. Getachew Temare, a political analyst based in the United States, called the Eritrean deployment Asmara's 'plan B', arguing that Eritrea had first wanted Tigray to be a buffer zone under TPLF control to protect its border from the federal army.

Regional and US reaction

Bloomberg reported that the US issued a security alert telling citizens to reconsider travel to Ethiopia because of the threat of long-range attacks as tensions with Eritrea escalate. The embassy in Addis Ababa advised US citizens to avoid the Amhara, Tigray and Afar regions. RFI describes Ethiopia's counter-offensive, launched about ten days earlier, as the step that pushed Asmara to commit troops on the ground, raising fears that the Tigray fighting could become a wider regional war.