JOINT STATEMENT: URGENT CALL TO STOP THE RENEWED WAR ON TIGRAY

In the strongest possible terms, the undersigned Tigrayan civil society organizations condemn the return of war to Tigray and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a comprehensive political settlement. On 23 September 2026, the National Regional Government of Tigray announced that its forces had entered a “defensive war” against a federal attack. Fighting has since spread into the Afar and Amhara regions, Ethiopian Airlines has suspended all flights to Mekelle, Shire, and Axum, and since September 24, state-owned Ethio Telecom’s mobile and internet services across Tigray have been cut off, recalling the federal government’s
communications blackout during the 2020 to 2022 war.

This war did not begin on September 23, 2026. Despite repeated assurances of its commitment to peace and the promises of the Pretoria Agreement, the Ethiopian government has refused to pay nearly 20 billion birr in wartime salaries owed to some 130,000 Tigrayan civil servants. Since 2025, it has waged a war of attrition against Tigray: fuel deliveries began falling in February 2025 and stopped entirely in January 2026, according to Tigrayan authorities; budget transfers have slowed since October 2025, leaving more than 141,000 public servants unpaid; and medical supplies were cut off entirely at the start of 2026. Since early August, the Ethiopian government has also returned to aerial bombardment of the region, evidenced by the following incidents:

• August 1: more than 30 people were buried in Sheraro after a drone strike, according to Priority for Human Rights Ethiopia;
• August 10: Merewa General Secondary School was struck in Raya Alamata;
• August 18: a farmer training center was struck in Dandera, outside Mekelle;
• August 20: two strikes hit inside Mekelle, with 13 casualties received at Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital;
• August 25: strikes targeted Atsbi and Felegehiwet in the Eastern Zone;
• August 26 and 27: two schools were struck in Seharti and Kilte Awlaelo, days before the new school year;
• September 8: three people were killed in Hintalo, including a two-year-old child, according to district officials;
• September 19: civilians were injured and homes damaged in Maychew;
• September 20: a truck carrying 41 metric tons of food aid for displaced families was destroyed near Sheraro;
• September 22: more than twenty strikes hit southern Tigray, killing 14 civilians, according to the mayor of Alamata.

Much to our great disappointment, the international response has been one-sided. Governments and international bodies either ignored these strikes or acknowledged them without naming the perpetrators. On 18 September 2026, the United States formally lifted the arms embargo it imposed on Ethiopia in 2021 during the war on Tigray and removed the Eritrean Defense Forces from its sanctions list. Five days later, the day after more than twenty strikes hit southern Tigray, U.S. Ambassador Ervin Massinga condemned the TPLF by name for a “large-scale offensive” and threatened further sanctions. Such selective messaging tells the Ethiopian government it can continue its campaign with impunity, as it did during the genocidal war on Tigray. 

Even conservative estimates, including the African Union’s, put the death toll of the genocidal war at some 600,000 people. The Pretoria Agreement ended large-scale fighting, but the federal government never implemented it: hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans remain displaced, Western Tigray remains under an Amhara occupation the federal government has failed to end, Eritrean troops still hold parts of Irob and other border districts, and those responsible for atrocities have faced no accountability. Impunity did not preserve the peace; it made renewed war possible. A population of genocide survivors, already under siege and facing drought and severe food shortages, will pay the greatest price for this war. 

No independent international body has investigated violations in Tigray since the UN Human Rights Council allowed the mandate of its International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia to expire in 2023. With communications cut and each side accusing the other of starting the fighting, an independent international presence is urgently needed to investigate violations by all parties, monitor conditions on the ground, preserve evidence, and report publicly. 

Therefore, we are calling for: 

• The Ethiopian federal government to immediately cease all hostilities and drone strikes in Tigray, restore fuel, medicine, banking, telecommunications, and budget transfers, lift all restrictions on humanitarian access, withdraw forces occupying Western Tigray, and commit to peaceful political dialogue; 
• The TPLF and the National Regional Government of Tigray to commit to an immediate cessation of hostilities, prioritize the protection of civilians, treat all detainees in accordance with international humanitarian law, and pursue Tigray’s legitimate demands through political means; 
• The African Union, United Nations, European Union, and IGAD to move beyond expressions of concern and secure a verifiable cessation of hostilities and unrestricted humanitarian access;
• The United Nations, African Union, and international human rights bodies to urgently deploy an independent international mechanism, with unrestricted access, to investigate and publicly report on violations by all parties, including drone strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and to preserve evidence for future accountability; 
• The United States to publicly identify those responsible for drone strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure and apply its sanctions tools even-handedly, including toward Eritrean forces occupying Tigrayan territory; 
• All parties and international guarantors to pursue a comprehensive political settlement, backed by enforceable guarantees, that withdraws all occupying forces, returns displaced Tigrayans to their homes, and establishes independent mechanisms for investigation, justice, and accountability.

The international community must not repeat the failures of 2020 by waiting for the death toll to rise before it acts. The fighting must end. The siege must end. Impunity must end.