Eritrean Forces Reported Deep Inside Ethiopia's Tigray as Fears Grow of Wider Regional War

Eritrean soldiers have entered northern Ethiopia and advanced towards the heart of the Tigray region, residents of the town of Adigrat told the BBC, in a development that risks dragging the Horn of Africa into a broader confrontation. The reported incursion comes two weeks after fighting erupted between Ethiopia's national army and regional forces, and just days after Addis Ababa and Asmara moved to sever diplomatic relations. The BBC is unable to report directly from Tigray, and the accounts could not be independently verified, but multiple residents described a significant military convoy moving south from the Eritrean border.

According to those witnesses, Eritrean units crossed from the border settlement of Zalambessa and pushed towards central Tigray, with convoys passing through Adigrat and continuing towards Edaga Hamus, a town lying between Adigrat and the regional capital, Mekelle. One Adigrat resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for personal safety, estimated seeing roughly 40 trucks packed with troops heading south. A second resident said the movement began under cover of darkness, with vehicles bearing Eritrean registration plates threading through the city, before becoming visible in daylight.

That second witness said as many as 20 to 30 large trucks were spotted moving towards Edaga Hamus on a single morning. The same account, relayed through contacts travelling the route, described additional vehicles transporting heavy weaponry, including anti-aircraft guns, and indicated that some soldiers were advancing on foot rather than by vehicle. A source in Mekelle said relatives in Adigrat had described even larger movements, putting the number of troop-carrying trucks at up to 60, with personnel subsequently deployed in the mountainous terrain around Edaga Hamus.

Images circulating on social media appear to show military trucks laden with uniformed personnel travelling towards Adigrat, Edaga Hamus and possibly Wukro, another important settlement along the corridor linking Adigrat and Mekelle. The BBC has not verified this footage. Meanwhile, sources inside Wukro reported that national army soldiers and allied fighters entered the town on Wednesday following an exchange of heavy fire roughly 15km to the south. A resident of Edaga Hamus said Eritrean troops had passed through the area and that drone strikes had been carried out nearby, targeting soldiers.

The fighting that prompted these movements began a fortnight ago, after months of escalating tension between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the party that governs the region. Both sides accuse each other of breaking the 2022 agreement that brought a close to a devastating two-year civil war. That conflict, which lasted from 2020 to 2022, saw Eritrea fighting alongside Ethiopia against the TPLF, in one of the bloodiest wars of the century. It pushed Tigray to the brink of famine and left scars that residents say have never healed.

The current crisis has been compounded by shifting regional alignments. In September, a new alliance of armed groups operating inside Ethiopia was announced, and it includes the Tiplf. Addis Ababa has also alleged that Eritrea is providing support to the TPLF, a charge Asmara has previously rejected. Now, senior Ethiopian officials are going further. In an interview with the privately owned Fana Television, government figure Abraham Belay accused Eritrea of taking a direct and substantial role in the fighting, claiming its army had committed "full capacity and logistics" to the conflict and that Eritrean soldiers had been killed and captured. He warned that retaliation would be severe.

That rhetoric follows the dramatic step taken last week, when Ethiopia and Eritrea cut diplomatic ties amid the renewed violence, heightening anxiety across a region already fragile after years of war. Relations between the two neighbours have been deteriorating for some time, driven largely by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's stated ambition to secure his country access to one of Eritrea's Red Sea ports. Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea gained independence in 1993, making port access a longstanding strategic priority and a recurring source of friction.

Eritrea's involvement carries particular weight because of its role in the previous war, when it acted as a key ally to Ethiopia against the Tigrayan forces. Reports of its troops returning to Tigray have provoked fear among residents who remember the abuses allegedly committed by Eritrean soldiers during that conflict. One Adigrat inhabitant described the emotional impact of seeing them once more, saying memories of the war remained painfully vivid and that people were distressed by their presence. The psychological toll of renewed militarisation, on a population already exhausted by famine, displacement and bloodshed, should not be underestimated.

Reporting from the region remains extremely difficult. The BBC has no access to Tigray and the surrounding areas, although mobile networks and internet services have been restored across most locations since the military seized control of Mekelle over the weekend. TPLF forces withdrew from the city, which sits 115km south of Adigrat, leaving it in the hands of the national army. The communications blackout that accompanied the earlier war made verification of atrocities and casualty figures agonisingly slow, and the current restrictions risk repeating that pattern.

The scale of the reported Eritrean deployment suggests a significant escalation beyond a purely internal Ethiopian dispute, raising the prospect that a fragmented conflict could spill across borders. Should Eritrean and Ethiopian troops confront one another directly, or become entangled with the various armed factions now aligned against the government, the fighting could widen considerably. The presence of anti-aircraft weaponry and reported drone strikes already points to a more technologically complex confrontation than the guerrilla warfare of recent months.

For now, the picture remains incomplete. The BBC has been unable to independently confirm any of the troop movements described by residents, and much of the circulating material originates from social media. Yet the consistency of accounts from several towns along the Adigrat-Mekelle corridor lends them credibility, even as officials on all sides pursue their own narratives. As diplomats and regional bodies watch nervously, the people of Tigray are once again left counting trucks in the dark, wondering whether the peace they were promised four years ago has finally collapsed.