Ethiopian forces reportedly retake Mekelle airport as peace deal faces new test
Accounts of a battlefield reversal leave civilian access and the future of the Pretoria agreement unresolved.
Ethiopian federal forces retook the airport serving Mekelle on October 3, according to sources who spoke to international news agencies, marking a reported reversal in the struggle for control of Tigray’s transport links.
Three sources told Reuters that troops had regained Alula Aba Nega Airport. Reuters said it could not immediately independently verify their accounts, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was not available for comment. The Associated Press separately reported residents’ accounts that federal forces had taken the airport.
Neither account established that the entire city was under government control. An airport’s capture is a significant development, but should not be treated as proof that fighting elsewhere has ended.
The renewed conflict had already prompted a UN warning before the archive week began. In a September 23 statement, the secretary-general expressed concern about the seizure of airports at Mekelle, Axum and Shire and fighting spreading into neighboring areas.
He urged all sides to protect civilians, allow aid agencies safe access and avoid actions that could widen the conflict. The statement supported African Union efforts to bring the parties back to talks within the Pretoria Agreement framework.
The latest reports therefore combine a possible battlefield shift with an unresolved humanitarian and diplomatic emergency. Restoring airport control would not, on its own, demonstrate that commercial travel could resume safely or that communities cut off by the fighting had received assistance.
The African Union had laid out a more specific diplomatic concern on September 23. Commission chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said the occupation of the three airports, detention of federal personnel and interruption of civilian air services risked undoing progress achieved since the Pretoria settlement. He described the airport seizures by Tigray forces as inconsistent with that agreement.
The AU also warned of fighting in South Tigray and Afar and of new political and military alliances that could destabilize the region. It asked neighboring countries to avoid contributing to escalation and requested urgent engagement by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, its high representative for the Horn of Africa.
The AU's proposed route remained direct talks under the November 2022 accord. Whether the reported recapture creates an opening for those talks or another cycle of fighting depends on decisions the latest battlefield accounts could not establish.
