Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – When Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed the Pretoria Agreement in November 2022, it was meant to end two years of devastating war. The agreement called for a permanent cessation of hostilities, the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Tigrayan forces, political dialogue and the return of displaced people. Article 7 also required the TPLF to refrain from conscription, training, deployment and mobilisation of military forces, as well as preparations for renewed conflict.
Nearly four years later, the large-scale war has ended, but many of the disputes that fuelled it remain unresolved. More significantly, the period since 2024 has seen the TPLF reposition itself politically and organisationally while retaining military leverage and developing new relationships. The sequence is striking: TPLF contacts with Eritrean officials, including reported meetings in Dubai and Zalambessa; a renewed struggle over political control in Tigray; reports of recruitment and mobilisation; new clashes involving Tigrayan forces; and the emergence of Tsimdo, a loose convergence of groups opposed to the federal government.
Taken together, the developments raise a question over whether Pretoria became less a completed transition to peace than a period in which the TPLF could regroup and reposition itself while the underlying conflict remained unresolved. There is no evidence that the TPLF entered the agreement with a predetermined plan to use it as a tactical pause. But the events since 2024 suggest that the movement has retained an organisational and security role that Pretoria was supposed to diminish.
Article 6 established the process for disarming, demobilising and reintegrating TPLF fighters. Tigrayan forces handed over heavy weapons after the agreement, and thousands of former combatants have entered demobilisation programmes. But the process did not fully dismantle the region’s military structures.
In 2026, reports emerged of renewed recruitment and forced mobilisation in Tigray. If confirmed, such activity would go beyond the incomplete implementation of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process and directly challenge Article 7’s ban on conscription and mobilisation. The distinction between organised mobilisation and the views of Tigray’s civilian population is important.
There is no basis for assuming that Tigrayans as a whole support a return to war. Many are still living with the consequences of the last conflict. A civilian source in Tigray, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said: “The people of Tigray want peace; we don’t want a second war.” For those civilians, reports of recruitment carry a simple implication: the possibility of being pulled back into a conflict they believed had ended.
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