Why Ethiopia’s Tigray could be on the brink of another conflict

An eerily familiar set of headlines is making the rounds in Ethiopia, troubling many in the fragile, northern Tigray region.

Successive delegations of civil society and religious leaders have, in recent weeks, travelled to the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, for “dialogue”. For some, it is a reminder of the events that played out in the final weeks before Tigray descended into war in November 2020.

That war left 600,000 people dead and some five million displaced. It brought global attention to Ethiopia’s fractured politics and tarnished the reputation of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for mending long-severed ties with neighbouring Eritrea.

A ceasefire two years later was supposed to end the war; instead, analysts say, another conflict might be looming . This t