The national airline of Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines, plans to reactivate this Sunday its connections with Mekelle, the capital of the regional state of Tigray, after the city has returned to being under the control of forces loyal to the central Government following the expulsion of the fighters of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
"Ethiopian Airlines is pleased to announce that its regular flights to Mekelle, temporarily suspended, will resume on October 11, 2026" after a three-week suspension due to the security crisis, the company announced this Friday in a statement.
During the past weekend, militias aligned with the Ethiopian Executive accessed Mekelle after the withdrawal of the TPLF insurgents, who on Saturday night confirmed their orderly exit from the city and described it as a tactical move.
"The Government of Tigray decided to temporarily withdraw from Mekelle to allow our Army to destroy the enemy in the face of possible attacks that this genocidal regime may launch against our people and our city," explained the TPLF in a message posted on its social media.
The tensions that had accumulated for months between the federal Government and the authorities of Tigray, combined with internal divisions within the regional administration itself, led to a new escalation of hostilities in mid-last month that blew up the Pretoria agreements (South Africa), signed in 2022 to end the previous war. That conflict, according to estimates from the Ethiopian Executive and the African Union, caused between 100,000 and 600,000 deaths in just two years.