Tigray Government Condemns Drone Strikes, Calls for Resistance

MEKELLE — Tigray National Regional Government issued an urgent statement on Tuesday condemning drone strikes carried out the previous day against what it described as civilian areas of Tigray, accusing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party government of reviving a campaign of genocide against the region's population.

The statement, released by the Office of the Press Secretariat in Mekelle and dated 13 Meskerem 2019 in the Ethiopian calendar (23 September 2026), refers to the federal government as a "dictatorial and genocidal regime" that is using various methods to suppress the people of Tigray. It says the drone attacks of 22 September targeted peaceful civilians and form part of a wider pattern of military pressure on the region.

According to the statement, the regional government holds Abiy Ahmed personally responsible for the escalation and calls on the people of Tigray, at home and abroad, to stand united in the face of what it describes as a renewed war. The text also warns against what it calls the federal government's attempts to conceal its actions from the international community, and appears to link the pressure on Tigray to Addis Ababa's broader regional ambitions, including its stated goal of securing access to the sea.

The statement closes with a tribute to Tigray's "heroic martyrs," language associated with the 2020–2022 war that killed hundreds of thousands and ended with the Pretoria agreement in November 2022.

The strikes come days after the United States allowed sanctions on Eritrea's military and ruling party to lapse, a decision criticized by US Congressman Gregory Meeks, who warned that fighting in Tigray was escalating and that recent drone strikes had gone largely unreported due to Ethiopia's restricted press environment. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces remain at heightened risk of direct conflict, while the implementation of the Pretoria agreement has been widely described as uneven.

There was no immediate response from the federal government in Addis Ababa.