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Tigray War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Two years of war between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray region, with Eritrean troops, blockade and famine, and a death toll among the highest of the century.

Fought
2020 to 2022
Duration
2 years
Dates
4 November 2020 to 2 November 2022
Deaths
Estimates from 160,000 to 600,000 including famine and disease
Government side
Ethiopian National Defence Force; Eritrea; Amhara regional forces and Fano militia; drones from Turkey, UAE, Iran
Tigray
TPLF and Tigray Defence Forces; allied Oromo Liberation Army
Result
Pretoria cessation of hostilities; TPLF disarmed in principle; Eritrean and Amhara forces remain in parts of Tigray

The Tigray War (November 2020-November 2022) broke out when the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which had dominated Ethiopia for 27 years until Abiy Ahmed's rise in 2018, held its own regional election and attacked federal army bases; Abiy sent in the army, backed by Eritrean forces and Amhara militias. Mekelle fell in three weeks, but the TPLF's Tigray Defence Forces retook it in June 2021 and advanced towards Addis Ababa before being driven back. Massacres (Axum, Mai Kadra), mass rape, the Eritrean occupation, a blockade of Tigray's 6 million people and famine marked the war; drone strikes turned the tide for the government. The Pretoria agreement of 2 November 2022 ended the fighting. Estimates of deaths range from 160,000 to 600,000 including starvation.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Tigray War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

02004006008001000120014001600180020002200Tigray War (2020 to 2022)Open: Kingdom of AksumKingdom of Aksum (100 to 940)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: Conquests of Menelik IIConquests of Menelik II (1878 to 1904)Open: Ethiopian Civil War and Eritrean War of IndependenceEthiopian Civil War and Eritrean War of Independence (1961 to 1991)Open: Second Sudanese Civil WarSecond Sudanese Civil War (1983 to 2005)Open: Somali Civil WarSomali Civil War (1991 to present)Open: War in DarfurWar in Darfur (2003 to present)Open: South Sudanese Civil WarSouth Sudanese Civil War (2013 to 2020)

Estimated deaths in the Tigray War

Ranges are wide; the low estimate is around 160,000.

0150300450600Direct violence: 100100Direct violenceFamine and lack of healthcare: 250250Famine and lack of healthcareTotal (upper estimate): 600600Total (upper estimate)thousands (Ghent University estimates)

Timeline of the Tigray War

  1. 2020
    Tigray regional election; war begins; Mekelle fallsSeptember to November.
  2. 2021
    TDF retakes Mekelle; blockade; TDF advance towards Addis
  3. 2022
    Truce; final offensive; Pretoria agreement2 November.
  4. 2023
    Interim administration in Tigray

From dominance to war

The TPLF had led the coalition that overthrew the Derg in 1991 and ran Ethiopia until protests brought the Oromo Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018; he made peace with Eritrea (winning the Nobel Prize) and dissolved the coalition into a Prosperity Party the TPLF refused to join. When Abiy postponed elections for COVID, Tigray held its own in September 2020; on 4 November Tigrayan forces attacked the Northern Command bases and Abiy launched a 'law enforcement operation'. Eritrea's Isaias Afwerki, the TPLF's old enemy, joined in.

Occupation and reversal

Federal and Eritrean forces took Mekelle on 28 November 2020; the TPLF went to the mountains. Eritrean troops massacred hundreds at Axum; Amhara forces annexed western Tigray and expelled Tigrayans; humanitarian access was cut. In June 2021 the TDF routed the federal army and re-entered Mekelle; the government declared a ceasefire and imposed a blockade. The TDF pushed into Amhara and Afar, taking Dessie and Kombolcha in November 2021 and threatening the capital, before withdrawing under drone strikes and mobilisation.

Blockade, final offensive, Pretoria

A truce in March 2022 let some aid in; fighting resumed in August with a combined Ethiopian-Eritrean offensive that took Shire and Axum in October. Under AU mediation in Pretoria, Ethiopia and the TPLF signed a cessation of hostilities on 2 November 2022: TPLF disarmament, restoration of federal authority and services, and aid access. An interim regional administration was set up in 2023, but Eritrean troops and Amhara forces stayed in occupied areas, a million people remained displaced, and Ethiopia's wars shifted to Amhara and Oromia.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

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Wars of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the Tigray War

  1. Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Eritrea; two years later Eritrean troops fought alongside his army in Tigray.
  2. The war was one of the deadliest of the twenty-first century by some estimates, yet drew far less attention than Ukraine, which began 15 months later.
  3. The Tigray blockade cut off 6 million people from banking, telecoms, fuel and most food for over a year.
  4. The TDF's advance in November 2021 came within 200 km of Addis Ababa and prompted foreign embassies to evacuate.
  5. Turkish Bayraktar TB2 and Iranian and Emirati drones were credited with reversing the TDF advance.
  6. The Axum massacre of November 2020 killed several hundred civilians in a city holding, by tradition, the Ark of the Covenant.
  7. The Pretoria talks were led by former Nigerian president Obasanjo and Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta.
  8. The TPLF had itself fought a border war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 that killed 100,000.

Sources

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