Reported Federal Offensive in Western Tigray Marks Serious Escalation and Demands Immediate International Intervention

Omna Tigray calls on the African Union, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations to act now to de-escalate the situation before it is too late. 

Omna Tigray issues this statement with grave urgency. On the morning of Saturday, August 1, 2026, Tigray’s regional authorities reported that Ethiopian federal forces launched a military offensive in Western Tigray, in the direction of Shererina near the Sudanese border. The fighting was described to AFP as beginning at approximately 6:00 a.m., involving heavy artillery, and continuing through the day. The federal government has not commented. While independent verification has not been possible yet, what is not in question is the trajectory. For six months, Omna Tigray and others have documented an economic siege, a military encirclement, and a pattern of drone strikes on Tigray and have warned that these conditions were converging to war. That warning has now met its test, and the people of Tigray are again the ones who will pay for how the international community answered it.

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW

Tigray’s regional administration stated that federal forces have opened a wide military offensive in Western Tigray Zone. A senior Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) official told AFP that the attack began early Saturday and involved heavy artillery. Other reporting describes mechanized units and drones in use around Shererina.  

Western Tigray is not neutral ground. It is Tigrayan territory that has been occupied since November 2020, from which hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans were brutally expelled in campaigns of ethnic cleansing. To this day, they have not been allowed to safely return. Any military operation conducted there is conducted on land whose rightful residents are living in dire conditions in camps across Tigray and in war-torn Sudan.

THIS DID NOT BEGIN TODAY, AND IT WAS NOT UNFORESEEABLE

Fighting broke out between Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) and Ethiopian Federal forces and Amhara militias in Tselemti on January 26, which was followed by the entry of the TDF into Korem and Alamata on January 29. The federal government cancelled all flights to Tigray. On January 31, ENDF drone strikes killed a civilian driver in Central Tigray. Since February, federal forces have encircled the region from the south and west. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned in February that the situation was highly volatile and would likely deteriorate further. Federal drone strikes have continued, most recently near Sheraro on June 5, 2026.

Alongside this military pressure, the Ethiopian federal government has conducted a sustained economic siege. Fuel deliveries ceased entirely on January 28, 2026, grounding ambulances and paralyzing humanitarian operations for more than two million people. Budget transfers have been withheld, leaving over 141,000 civil servants without consistent salaries. Tigray has had no representation in the federal parliament for more than five years and was excluded again from the 2026 national elections, the only region in Ethiopia excluded in its entirety from successive voting cycles. In February, the House of Federation stripped five Western Tigray districts from the regional administration’s electoral oversight, a decision Omna Tigray condemned at the time as a provocation.

The International Crisis Group warned in February that the risk of hostilities remained high and urged outside powers to open back channels. It warned again in May that the risk of renewed conflict was significant. Analysts assessed that a federal offensive was likely. Twenty human rights organizations warned that Ethiopia stood on the brink. Omna Tigray issued its own urgent call for peace and civilian protection on February 19.

None of this was hidden. It was documented, published, and delivered directly to governments and multilateral bodies with the authority to act. They did not act.

PRETORIA WAS NEVER IMPLEMENTED, AND ITS COLLAPSE WAS BUILT INTO ITS NEGLECT

Nearly four years after the Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022, its core provisions remain unmet. Internally displaced Tigrayans have not returned home. Western Tigray and Irob remain under occupation. Eritrean forces, never a party to the agreement and never bound by its terms, have never been forced to withdraw. Reconstruction has not been delivered. Justice for the countless war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide committed by the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments and their allies has not advanced.

An agreement that is not enforced does not end a war. Since its signing, the Pretoria Agreement has been weaponized against the people it was meant to protect. The lack of its implementation has only  deferred war and transferred the cost of the deferral onto civilians. Today’s fighting is what that deferral looks like when it expires.

OUR DEMANDS

To the Ethiopian Federal Government: Halt all military operations in and around Tigray, publicly account for your forces’ activity in Western Tigray, restrain and demobilize Amhara and Fano forces in and near the region, end the siege by restoring fuel, budget transfers, and unconditional humanitarian access, and implement the Pretoria Agreement in full.

To the TPLF and Tigrayan forces: Commit publicly to a ceasefire and African Union-mediated negotiations and end all conscription.

To Eritrean forces, Amhara regional forces, and Fano militias: Withdraw from all Tigrayan territory, including Western Tigray and Irob, and allow displaced Tigrayans to return home; Tigray cannot become the terrain on which Eritrea and Ethiopia settle their dispute.

To the African Union: Convene emergency talks and enforce the agreement you brokered, because four years of monitoring without enforcement is now measurable in artillery fire.

To the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations: Deploy envoys now, attach specified consequences to civilian targeting and humanitarian obstruction, and restore the independent human rights monitoring terminated under Ethiopian government pressure, which has left Tigray entering renewed hostilities unwatched.

The genocidal war on Tigray killed between 600,000 and 800,000 people. It produced famine, widespread and systematic sexual violence, the intentional destruction of the health system, and the forced displacement of millions who have still not gone home. Tigray was never allowed to recover from it. A silent genocide has continued. Renewed active war, ahead of the planting season, would have catastrophic consequences. 

We demand an immediate halt to hostilities. We demand the protection of civilians. We demand that Tigrayan lives be treated with the urgency they have never yet been given.