Did Ethiopia’s Civil War Restart?

Ethiopian rebels launched a coordinated offensive, capturing key territory from the government in what may be the restart of civil war.

• On the night of September 22-23, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (tplf) captured airports in Axum, Shire and Mekele from the government with apparently little resistance. Afterward, the tplf and the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, another rebel group, captured the town of Abala in the region of Afar.

• Fighting was also reported around the communities of Tonsa, Berahile, Dallol and Erebti.

• The Ethiopian government reportedly responded with air strikes.

The fighting seems concentrated around Mekele, the capital of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

Context: Between 2020 and 2022, Tigray state and the tplf launched a rebellion against the federal government that quickly devolved into civil war. Both sides committed horrendous massacres and other atrocities.

• With an estimated death toll of 600,000 to 800,000 people, the war may be, thus far, the deadliest conflict of the 21st century. The conflict ended with a 2022 peace treaty, but the underlying issues—mainly the tplf refusing to accept government rule—remain.

• The recent fighting suggests this war is about to re-erupt.

Prophecy to be fulfilled? Daniel 11:40 prophesies of an end-time “king of the south” that provokes world war. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in The King of the South that this bloc represents radical Islam, led by Iran. Verses 42-43 show Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia will ally with this king of the south.

Ethiopia is a majority Christian nation and seems unlikely to join a predominantly Islamist bloc. But renewed unrest could provide radical Islam the opening it needs.