Ethiopia fighting escalates in Tigray as 52 civilians killed, tourists stranded

Three days of intense fighting around Alamata, a town in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, has left at least 52 civilians dead, according to hospital sources who spoke to the BBC. The violence, which erupted over the weekend and continued through Monday, has reshaped the military landscape in the area. Government troops have seized control of Alamata from regional fighters and are now positioning themselves to advance northward toward Mekelle, Tigray's largest city. Video footage circulating on social media shows army tanks moving through Alamata's streets, a visible marker of the shift in territorial control.

The immediate trigger for this escalation traces back to months of simmering tension between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the political party that governs the region. Both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire agreement signed in 2022 that formally ended a devastating two-year civil war. The TPLF claims it was responding to a federal military offensive that included drone strikes. The government counters that Tigrayan forces attacked first after seizing control of airports in the region. The disagreement over who initiated the latest round of violence reflects a deeper breakdown in whatever trust the 2022 deal had managed to establish.

The human toll in Alamata has been severe and indiscriminate. A doctor at Alamata General Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, described three days of relentless bombardment involving heavy explosives and artillery fire. Some ordnance struck residential neighborhoods directly. Among those killed were children as young as three days old, mothers, and cattle herders caught in the crossfire. A single strike on the town's marketplace claimed twelve lives. Beyond the dead, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières reported that more than 700 wounded people had been admitted to hospitals it supports across Tigray in recent days. The scale of injury suggests the fighting was not confined to military targets.

The conflict has rippled outward, affecting neighboring regions and trapping foreign nationals. Thirty-three tourists, including Americans, Israelis, Britons, South Koreans, South Africans, and others, have been stranded in Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Amhara region famous for its 13th-century churches carved from rock. The airport serving the town closed to commercial flights last Wednesday as fighting spread to the area. A British tourist who remained in Lalibela described a week of constant military activity—gunfire, artillery, and a heavy army presence throughout the town. Fourteen Israeli tourists were evacuated by military helicopter on Monday, and five others departed via an NGO convoy despite warnings against road travel. The remaining tourists have been waiting for word that commercial flights might resume, with some indication the airport could reopen by Thursday, though it continues to be used by military aircraft.

The fighting in and around Lalibela involves the Ethiopian army and an Amhara militia that has allied with Tigrayan fighters. This alliance is part of a larger seven-member coalition formed earlier in September, explicitly aimed at removing the federal government in Addis Ababa. The emergence of this coordinated opposition has raised concerns about a broader regional conflict. There is particular worry that Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor to the north, could be drawn into the fighting. The federal government has accused Eritrea of supporting the armed groups, a claim Eritrea denies. Tigrayan forces are also engaged in fighting in the Afar region, a strategically vital area that connects landlocked Ethiopia to the ports of Djibouti.

The humanitarian crisis is deepening as authorities have imposed severe restrictions on the region. Banking services across Tigray have been suspended by the government. Internet access has been cut off, though it remains unclear who ordered the shutdown. These measures have created cascading hardship. Residents who fled fighting in surrounding areas and sought refuge in Alamata found themselves in a town with no functioning financial system, no power, no communications. One source in Alamata described the situation starkly: people had walked for up to an hour to reach the town hoping for safety, only to find themselves trapped without access to money, banking, electricity, or phone service. The psychological toll was evident in the source's language—people were not merely inconvenienced but desperate and frustrated.

The communications blackout has separated families across vast distances. For those trapped in Tigray, the Tigray Broadcasting Service, based in the capital Addis Ababa, has begun collecting video messages via Telegram from people outside the region and broadcasting them via satellite television. The service is limited to greetings and updates, but it represents a rare lifeline for families divided by the shutdown. The banking restrictions are also affecting Tigrayans who have fled the region. A former resident of Mekelle who moved to Addis Ababa two months ago because of rising tensions attempted to pay for public transport using mobile money transfer and found the transaction blocked. Bank accounts opened in Tigray have been frozen or restricted for customers living elsewhere in Ethiopia. The result, he told the BBC, has created chaos for many Tigrayans who escaped to other parts of the country seeking safety.

The BBC's ability to report directly from Tigray and surrounding areas remains severely constrained. Communications blackouts make it difficult to verify information independently or reach sources on the ground. What is known comes largely from hospital workers, aid organizations, and the limited number of people able to communicate from the region. This reporting gap means significant aspects of the fighting remain unclear—the full scale of military movements, the exact positions of different forces, and the complete humanitarian picture. As government forces consolidate control of Alamata and prepare to push northward, the trajectory of the conflict remains uncertain, dependent on decisions that are largely hidden from outside view.