Ethiopian forces reportedly retake the Mekelle airport whose seizure grounded Tigray flights

The airport's loss is what stopped the planes, so its return is the first condition for bringing them back. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to Mekelle and to the Tigrayan cities of Axum and Shire after TPLF fighters took Alula Aba Nega Airport on Sept. 23 ^[9]. The AP report includes no statement from the airline about resuming service ^[20]. Federal troops on the runway remove the event that prompted the suspension. An airline would still be landing crews in a city whose control is contested ^[6].

The sourcing is thin. The residents who described the handover would not be named for fear of retribution, and it was not clear when the recapture took place ^[2]. The nearest named voice is Jalale Getachew Birru, an Ethiopia analyst at the conflict monitor ACLED. "Many reports indicate that the government and allied forces have begun to control Tigray's capital," he said ^[7]. The AP could not independently verify those reports ^[8].

If the city does change hands, the next question for anyone with an office or a warehouse there is who keeps order. Birru said Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government, if it takes Mekelle, is very likely to leave regional security to the Tigray Peace Force, which is made up of former Tigray Defense Forces members ^[15]. The faction broke away from the rebels and has operated alongside federal troops in neighbouring Afar, according to earlier AP reporting ^[11].

Getachew Temare, an Ethiopian attorney and human rights defender, made the skeptic's case in an analysis posted on X. "But the most consequential question is not whether Mekelle falls. It is what this fall means politically," he said ^[16]. He pointed to November 2020, when Mekelle last fell to federal forces but the TPLF, in his words, "retained something far more important. A substantial political and social constituency for armed resistance remained intact." "Within months, Tigrayan forces returned to Mekelle and the military balance was dramatically reversed," he said ^[18]. Temare also argued that the emergence of the Tigray Peace Force makes this conflict different from the last one ^[17].

For an operator, the trade-off is between two costs that fall at different times. Keeping Tigray contingency plans running costs money every week they stay in place. Standing them down on one airport report saves that money and costs more only if the 2020 pattern repeats. Then the cost arrives all at once, with staff back in a city Tigrayan forces retook within months last time ^[18]. In my view the airport report brings a restart decision closer without settling it. Holding the plans this quarter keeps the option to wait for an airline schedule and an official statement from either side ^[5]. Dropping them commits next quarter's operations to a federal hold that outlasts the one in 2020.

The exposure also runs past Tigray. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of supporting the TPLF, an allegation Eritrea denies ^[13]. The U.S. State Department urged both governments to show restraint and return to talks, and spokesman Tommy Pigott said, "The Horn of Africa cannot sustain another military conflict and humanitarian crisis." ^[14] The African Union warned that renewed tensions threatened the 2022 peace agreement ^[10]. That deal ended a two-year war in which Eritrea backed federal troops against the TPLF ^[19].