Is the Tigray peace agreement dead? Signed in 2022 under the auspices of the African Union, the Pretoria Agreement brought the armed conflict in Tigray to an end but has since failed to achieve meaningful pathways to peace for survivors, due to a combination of under-implementation and political paralysis. While the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) remains politically stunted and with its legitimacy challenged, the Ethiopian government absolves itself of its central role in delivering on the substantive elements of the agreement.
Reported to be one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st Century, the two-year war in Tigray led to the death of up to 600,000 Tigrayans. Horrific levels of violence included ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean allied military forces, with the Tigrayan Defence Forces also accused of crimes under international law, including sexual violence.
The Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide, an investigative body established by the regional government of Tigray, reported that forces committed targeted sexual abuses (including gang rape, sexual slavery and dehumanising and denigrating hate speech) impacting an estimated 286,250 survivors, with Ethiopian and Eritrean forces responsible for the lion’s share of incidents. Physicians for Human Rights supported these findings, asserting ‘most prevalent forms of sexual violence were those intended to maximise harm, humiliate survivors, instil terror, target vulnerable populations, exert control over survivors, and punish and destroy whole communities’, with minors and adolescents directly impacted.
After military losses and significant pressure from the international community, the Ethiopian government and the TPLF agreed to end the conflict. However, violence against the people of Tigray continued, with warnings from the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) that widespread human rights violations, including sexual violence, continued well into June 2023, eight months after signing. (ICHREE’s mandate was terminated the same year.)
A peace in crisis
Once the agreement was signed, and with the primary objective of regaining physical control of Tigray, Ethiopia prioritised the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of Tigrayan combatants, to be implemented in parallel with removing external military presence from Tigray. The poorly designed programme has left thousands of ex-combatants without proper support, leading to deep resentment.
A transitional justice process, mandated under the agreement and led by the Ethiopian government, has also been woefully inadequate, both in structure and implementation. Little meaningful effort has been made to address the complex realities faced by survivors, leading to the perpetuation of violence and re-victimization. The process should have paved the way for ascertaining truth, robust accountability measures and delivering redress for all victims. However, experts have raised the alarm on the enduring consequences and ‘structural impacts of the genocide’, with abandoned local communities becoming increasingly intolerant, leading to social discord and disintegration.
Delayed implementation has a direct cost. Increasing numbers of deaths have been reported in displacement camps in Shire and Adwa, where 458 people have died since last year, attributed to a lack of medication and food. The Ethiopian government is accused of under-allocation of resources and withholding of federal budgetary support to the region, preventing Tigray from maintaining essential services. Criticism has also been levelled at the Tigrayan leadership for over-politicising and under-prioritising the repatriation of displaced communities.
The International Organization for Migration and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs echo the alarm. Displacement in Tigray is a protracted crisis, with IDPs surviving in inhumane conditions, collective resolve pushed to the limit, and exposed to further risks both weather-related and human-inflicted. This is against a backdrop of a nationwide humanitarian crisis affecting 21 million people, particularly women and children.
The suffering does not end here. In central Tigray drone strikes earlier this year led to a fatality and injury, in breach of the agreement, leading to fears of a resumption of the conflict, when marketplaces and IDP camps were bombed by Ethiopian government forces. As usual the incident resulted in strongly worded diplomatic statements, but no consequences or mechanisms leveraged to prevent future violence and ensure civilian protection.
The role of the African Union
The African Union (AU) congratulated itself on how it handled the conflict and the peace process, the result of ‘shuttle diplomacy’. It was claimed that it elevated the institution’s confidence-building measures, proving that African solutions to African problems are achievable (and avoiding placing Ethiopia on the UN Security Council agenda).
But the AU’s appointment of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to lead the peace process, greeted with high expectations, delivered an arrangement that has since been described as structurally weak and poorly implemented, while the regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa, remains passive.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) started to investigate allegations of international human rights violations, only, to the dismay of Tigrayans, to terminate the inquiry in 2023 with no published report. The Commission dubiously justified ending the investigation by referring to the adoption of an ‘inclusive and comprehensive national transitional justice policy’ and the ‘restoration of peace and security and reconciliation’ as positive developments in Tigray that offer prospects, crediting Ethiopia for its efforts.
What did the Commission do for two years? Did it mislead victims? Was it relying entirely on Ethiopia’s questionable claims around the implementation of transitional justice, accountability, institutional reforms and non-existent recovery and rehabilitative efforts in Tigray?
Despite the provisions of the Pretoria Agreement (Art. 9), Tigray remains excluded from the federal arrangement, with no reinstatement of the pre-war constitutional relationship (including participation in the bicameral legislative bodies), while dealing with annexation of land by Amhara regional forces in the Western Tigray zone, forced and persistent displacement of its people and the continued presence of Eritrean forces. Human Rights Watch reported extensively on violent displacement and ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray, recently emphasising the persecution of ethnic Tigrayans at the hands of authorities, involving dehumanising and discriminatory treatment and effectively subjugating them to second class status.
The transitional justice process, a priority for the AU, is neither inclusive nor effective and almost entirely managed by Ethiopia to avoid accountability for the crimes it perpetrated during the war. ICHREE characterised it as ‘quasi-compliance’, noting it to be deeply flawed, failing to meet both AU and international standards and subject to deliberate politicisation, likely leading to further atrocity crimes, directly related to the failure to address past crimes.
Does the AU’s admission that the agreement was ‘overloaded’ reveal it over-estimated its own capacity, whilst undervaluing the complexities of the conflict? The combination of chronic bad faith from Ethiopia and poor stewardship from the AU, with its failure to meet the commitment and dynamism required to support a sustainable peace, has meant that its efforts have not delivered a peace dividend. It is clear Tigray remains politically and socially marginalised and disadvantaged, contrary to the AU’s intentions.
What next beyond the rhetoric?
The Pretoria Agreement has been reduced to nothing but rhetorical noise and an inconsequential mention in the humdrum of diplomacy. Conceding failure opens the conversation towards potential course correction and a reconfiguration of the vested interests. It is important to recognise that the lack of advancement on the expected deliverables is not merely political stalemate, but a result of intentional and structured attempts at guaranteeing no positive developments.
The quest for African solutions led to an agreement but has left the fate of some six million people being placed in the hands of a mechanism with sub-standard oversight, with governments lacking incentive to deliver on their obligations, all against a backdrop of a subdued international community. In 2024, the US Ambassador to the UN Thomas-Greenfield remarked that African problems are global problems, not limited to African solutions, but rather in need of African leadership. This is now notably absent in the case of Tigray.
The absence of a vocal and engaged international community has been disappointing, with experts arguing that the exclusion of key international actors from the negotiations and subsequently from monitoring, verification and compliance oversight may have been a tactic by Ethiopia to maintain desperate conditions in Tigray. It seems the AU was given carte blanche on restoring peace in post-war Ethiopia, without sufficient consideration for the multi-dimensional roots of the conflict, the unwillingness to hold Ethiopia accountable or to confront its appetite for conflict. Equally, they have failed to promote functional coherence with the interim administrations, while the TPLF is beset by continued factionalism.
The war on Tigray gave us extraordinary levels of brutality, both in scale and nature, causing irreversible harm to the Tigrayan population as a whole. The version of peace envisioned by Ethiopia is not aligned with the needs of Tigrayans nor with international standards. Key actors, including across Europe and the US, have a duty to act now and use their political and institutional weight to push for a revitalised approach to justice and peace-building, introducing specific consequences for deliberate obstruction, and reduced reliance on the AU aegis.
Some observers insist on the need to re-engage the initial brokers of the agreement and the African members of the UN Security Council, known as the A3 group. But this ignores Tigrayan suspicions regarding their defence of Ethiopia’s interests, raising concerns around impartiality. Rather, it should be emphasized that state sovereignty ‘does not confer immunity for committing atrocities’. It may be time to go back to the drawing board and carefully curate a sustained pathway to achieving tangible outcomes for a post-conflict Tigray, moving towards transformative recovery. Any and all efforts to this end must be guided by the international norm of ‘responsibility to protect’, to stave off future conflict and promote justice and accountability for past abuses.
At the time of writing, despite resounding calls across civil society, there are no independent investigations underway, a public determination on Tigray by the US State Department has been abandoned, there is a noted reluctance to place Ethiopia back on the agenda at the UN Security Council or the Human Rights Council, and impunity reigns for crimes that took place in Tigray.
Yet there is broad based support, including among Tigrayans, for continued scrutiny and independent international investigations to address the gravity of crimes and the implications for future peace and stability. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights held oral hearings last year on a case brought by Tigrayan victims and supported by legal activists, with the victims eagerly awaiting the outcome. The importance of pursuing rehabilitative, restorative and retributive justice has been echoed across the board. As other post-conflict societies have demonstrated, it will be central to Ethiopia’s long-term stability. Survivors are unwavering in their calls for accountability. As the former UN commission of experts insisted: ‘they must be at the heart of any and all future efforts towards truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing in Ethiopia’.
