Ethiopian Government forces and allied fighters claimed control of Alamata in southern Tigray on September 28, as fighting that began last week continued to spill into Amhara and Afar and put civilian hospitals under sudden pressure. The Tigray Peace Force, an armed group of Tigrayan fighters aligned with the federal government, said on Facebook that it had taken the town together with the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, or ENDF. Video verified by the Reuters news agency showed soldiers walking through Alamata carrying Ethiopian flags, while two diplomatic sources also told Reuters that the town had fallen and a source linked to opposition forces said those fighters were retreating.
Alamata sits about 120 kilometres south of Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, and Al Jazeera described it as a supply hub for troops, fuel and food near Tigray’s southern border with Amhara. A military source told Al Jazeera that government forces had already advanced and were heading toward or surrounding the Tigrayan capital. The latest fighting erupted after Tigrayan rebel forces seized three airports in Tigray and pushed into neighbouring regions, according to Al Jazeera’s September 29 explainer, which said the fragile Pretoria Agreement signed in November 2022 is again under severe strain. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, has called its campaign a defensive war and accused federal forces of using drones and heavy artillery, while federal forces and their allies have since counterattacked.
Europe External Programme with Africa, or EEPA, a Belgium-based centre that publishes Horn of Africa situation reports, said in its September 28 update that ENDF troops had captured Alamata and that the ENDF had also reportedly retaken Sekota in Amhara. EEPA listed fighting in Asketema, Chila, Deguasach, Hamusi, Gazgibela, Enjafat, Tekulesh, Gidan, Lasta and Raya Kobo between the ENDF, the Tigray Peace Forces, TPLF forces and the Amhara Fano National Movement. The ENDF said it had repelled attacks across seven North Wollo localities, EEPA reported, while flights were suspended and fighting was reported in Lalibela on September 24. Those North Wollo and Lalibela Belt place names matter for civilians who live along roads, markets and clinics that sit between contested fronts rather than behind a quiet rear area.
Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, said on Monday that wounded patients had surged in the north. The number of patients in the Korem and Alamata hospitals rose from about 180 to more than 420 in forty-eight hours, and MSF said about 300 wounded people had arrived at Suhul Hospital last week. Valerie Browning, cofounder of the Afar Pastoralist Development Association, told the Associated Press that about 150,000 people had been displaced since the latest fighting began. Those hospital and displacement figures are among the clearest public measures of civilian harm published this week, even as each side continues to issue contested kill and capture claims that have not been independently verified in full.
Fighting in Afar has raised separate alarms about supply routes and regional spillover. Al Jazeera, citing an Ethiopian commander who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, reported that TPLF forces seized Erebti, a strategically important Afar town, over the weekend. The Tigray Peace Force acknowledged that Erebti had fallen to the TPLF but disputed reports that the takeover followed intense fighting, according to AP. EEPA separately said the towns of Abala and Erebti in Afar had been captured by troops affiliated with the Alliance for Survival, and that fighting continued in Afar Zones 1, 2 and 4, with new fighting around Yallo on September 25. An offensive in Afar could threaten supply routes from Djibouti, through which most Ethiopian imports including fuel pass, Al Jazeera noted.
Afar’s governor told Al Jazeera that Eritrean forces were participating in the fighting, controlled more than two-thirds of the region, and were moving to cut the road linking Djibouti and Eritrea. The Eritrean government had not responded to those allegations when Al Jazeera published its explainer. Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, Ethiopia’s army chief of staff, has accused Eritrea of supporting opposition groups and has also alleged that Sudan and Egypt are providing backing. Eritrea and Sudan have denied the allegations, Al Jazeera reported, and Egypt’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nader Zaki told Reuters that Egyptian policy rests on respect for sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. EEPA also recorded Field Marshal Berhanu Jula saying ENDF forces were exercising restraint because war would further disrupt the region, while General Abebaw Tadesse, deputy chief of the ENDF, made statements about recapturing Assab in Eritrea for Red Sea access that sit outside the immediate Alamata battlefield map.
Communications and banking cuts have deepened the information fog for families. EEPA said Ethio Telecom had been down in Tigray since the evening of September 24 after the TPLF ordered a shutdown of Ethio Telecom and Safaricom, and that bank accounts in Tigray had been blocked since the afternoon of September 25. EEPA also reported drone strikes on a gas storage facility in Adigrat on September 25, a strike at Hayelom Tabia in Sheraro the same day, and a drone hit on Tigray Television on September 27 that damaged the building without reported casualties. Strikes hit Bahir Dar and Kombolcha airports, EEPA said, while Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to northern Tigray after Tigrayan forces seized the Mekelle airport from federal police, according to local sources cited in the same report. Detention of people of Tigrayan ethnicity in Addis Ababa increased over the weekend of September 26 and 27, EEPA reported, though those accounts remain attributed to the situation report rather than to a completed court process.
Days before the latest offensive, the TPLF joined six other armed groups to form the Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival, which said it wants to remove Abiy Ahmed’s government and establish a transitional administration. Al Jazeera named the Oromo Liberation Army and the Amhara Fano National Movement among the largest members of that coalition, noting that the alliance brings together groups that have previously fought one another. EEPA said the Gumuz Peoples Democratic Movement and Gonder Hibret for Ethiopian Unity rejected membership, while other southern movements reportedly sought to join. Alliance politics do not erase the local Amhara map that communities along North Wollo already know from years of fighting.
For Amhara readers, Zegabi’s English desk summarised an Amhara Association of America weekly update covering September 7 to 13 that logged battle events and rights-violation claims across eight Amhara zones: North Wollo, South Wollo, North Shewa, East Gojjam, West Gojjam, Awi, North Gojjam and Central Gonder. The Amhara Association of America, or AAA, is a United States-based advocacy organisation, so its framing should be read as advocacy documentation rather than as a court judgment. Even with that caveat, the multi-zone geography described through Zegabi places North Wollo localities such as Lasta near Lalibela inside a longer attrition pattern that predates this week’s Alamata headlines. AAA’s file, as carried by Zegabi, also recorded civilian-harm claims and drone activity far from any single hotspot, including contested school-related strike claims whose precise tolls had not been independently verified.
What the publicly named sources support this week is a northern war measured in hospital beds, displacement estimates, airport strikes, telecom and bank blackouts, and fighting that has already reached Alamata, Sekota, Lalibela’s wider belt, Abala, Erebti and multiple North Wollo localities. Ethiopian Government and allied claims of Alamata sit beside MSF’s patient surge from roughly 180 to more than 420 in Korem and Alamata hospitals, beside Browning’s figure of about 150,000 displaced people in Afar pastoralist areas, and beside EEPA’s list of Amhara towns where ENDF, Tigray Peace Forces, TPLF and Amhara Fano National Movement units have been reported in contact. Contested Eritrea involvement claims and contested Alliance for Survival territorial claims remain political and field allegations that had not been independently verified in full when the September 28 and 29 reports were published.
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