Tigray party announces restoration of regional government, threatening Ethiopia peace accord

The TPLF accused the federal government of violating the 2022 agreement that ended a civil war estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front announced on Sunday that it would reinstate the region's parliament and government, effectively abandoning the administrative structure established under the 2022 peace agreement that ended Ethiopia's civil war.¹²

The party's central committee said it had decided to restore the Tigray Government Assembly, "which had been suspended in the name of peace," according to a Facebook post.² The statement accused Ethiopia's federal government of violating the Pretoria Agreement, which ended two years of fighting between TPLF-led forces and the national army.¹²

The TPLF claimed the government had provoked armed conflict within Tigray, withheld funds to pay regional civil servants, and extended the tenure of the interim administration's president without consulting the party.¹ "It (the federal government) is in a hurry to launch a bloody war once again," the statement said.¹

Getachew Reda, the party's former spokesman who now serves as an adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, wrote on X that the TPLF's announcement constituted "a clear repudiation" of the post-war structure created by the Pretoria Agreement.¹² Getachew, who served as president of Tigray's interim administration before being replaced last year after disagreements with the TPLF, called on the international community to "act to stave off the threat of a catastrophic conflict in a region that can ill afford one."¹

Billene Seyoum, the prime minister's spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment about the TPLF's claims.¹ TPLF officials could not immediately be reached.¹

The civil war fought between 2020 and 2022 killed hundreds of thousands of people through direct violence, the collapse of healthcare and famine, according to researchers.¹