Eritrean troops reported in Adigrat and moving south as federal and allied forces take Agula’e north of Mekelle

Armed men ride in the back of a yellow truck on a town street, in a photo posted on 7 October 2026 by AfriMEOSINT, which said footage circulating that day purportedly showed Eritrean troops entering Idaga Hamus; the place, the date and the identity of the troops have not been independently verified (Rich Tedd / @AfriMEOSINT, via X)

Eritrean soldiers have been in the Tigrayan city of Adigrat for four days, and convoys carrying heavy weapons have been seen heading south toward Mekelle, a local official and witnesses told AFP on Wednesday, while Ethiopian federal troops and the allied Tigray Peace Force (TPF) took the small town of Agula’e north of Mekelle after heavy fighting in the morning, residents told DW Amharic, bringing the two armies closer to a possible direct clash.

“There have been Eritrean soldiers in Adigrat for the past four days, the population is very concerned,” a city official who asked not to be named told AFP. One witness said he saw troops “wearing Eritrean military uniforms” moving south along the city’s main road, and another said “Eritrean troops, loaded onto large trucks, patrol vehicles and other vehicles” were heading toward the town of Idaga Hamus, about 20 kilometers south of Adigrat. “They are passing through, carrying heavy weaponry,” the second witness said. Adigrat lies about 40 kilometers by road south of the Eritrean border. A source in Mekelle told DW Amharic that residents of Adigrat had described Eritrean soldiers traveling south on many heavy vehicles, and the same source said Adigrat itself was still under the control of Tigrayan forces.

Ethiopia accuses Eritrea, Egypt and Sudan of backing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF); all three deny it. The two neighbors cut diplomatic ties last week, and Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of planning to invade its territory to gain direct access to the Red Sea. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told state-linked media on Sunday that Cairo has “absolutely nothing to do” with events in Ethiopia, which he described as a “domestic crisis,” AFP reported.

Footage of the movement spread quickly on social media. Rich Tedd, who runs the open-source intelligence account AfriMEOSINT (@AfriMEOSINT), which covers geopolitics, security and conflicts mainly in East Africa, wrote on Wednesday that Eritrean troops “have deployed around Adigrat in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, with some heading towards Mekelle,” and posted a video and photos which, he wrote, purportedly show Eritrean troops crossing into Ethiopia and entering Idaga Hamus. The French-language open-source account NEXUS (@nexus_osint), which says it monitors conflicts and does fact-checking, wrote that the student and freelance cartographer Seb (@Seb_Masson_) had geolocated “a visual confirmation” of Eritrean forces in Idaga Hamus. Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge), a freelance journalist and researcher who reports on wars and uprisings, wrote that Eritrean forces “have been spotted in the Tigrayan city of Adigrat and are apparently marching south towards Mekelle,” adding, “We seem to be days away from an open clash between two states in the Horn.” The location and date of the footage had not been independently verified.

Not everyone accepts these accounts. The Eritrean news blog EritreanPost (@eritrean_post) called reports of an Eritrean invasion “misinformation” that was “not backed by facts,” and wrote, “No Satellite imagery has proven Eritrean mechanized units entering Ethiopia in mass.” The Critical Threats Project of the American Enterprise Institute said in its October 6 review that it could not confirm claims of an Eritrean military buildup. Jawar Mohammed (@Jawar_Mohammed), a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, took the opposite view in a post titled “Isaias May Have Made the Move Abiy Was Waiting For,” citing DW’s report that Eritrean troops were moving deeper into central Tigray as a major escalation that is drawing the two countries toward direct confrontation.

On the ground, government forces are pushing north of Mekelle. Residents told DW Amharic that heavy fighting took place around Agula’e on Wednesday morning and that Tigrayan forces then left the town and moved toward Wukro. Residents also said that government forces had reached Hagere Selam, a small town southwest of Mekelle on the road to Tembien, which DW Amharic could not independently verify. The Critical Threats Project had reported that Agula’e and Wukro were captured on October 4, which suggests that the area has changed hands more than once. Martin Plaut (@martinplaut), a fellow of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies who writes about the Horn of Africa, wrote on Wednesday that there was fighting around Agula and that robberies were continuing in Mekelle.

Control of Wukro, about 50 kilometers north of Mekelle on the main road to Adigrat, is disputed. A TPF commander told AFP that his troops had reached the town. The conflict-tracking account The Ethiopian Conflict Map (@Ethiomapping) wrote early on Wednesday that “the ENDF is no longer in Wukro but south of it.” A Wukro resident told DW Amharic by phone that heavy weapons could be heard around the town, that Tigrayan forces had been there until Tuesday night before leaving in the direction of Adigrat and Hawzen, and that the town was now “outside everyone’s control.” The resident said no Eritrean troops had been seen near Wukro, that there was no electricity although phone and internet services were working, and that residents had been guarding their neighborhoods in groups after attempts at looting on Sunday and Monday. Residents near Wukro told BBC Amharic that they had seen Tigrayan forces regrouping, and they feared a new round of fighting.

The TPF, made up of Tigrayans who fight on the federal side, has made its aims clear. Ermiyas Ababu, a TPF front commander, told the Associated Press that the group’s “mission is to control the state of Tigray and free it from the TPLF rebels,” and said it was working with the army to expand the areas under its control. Some residents of Mekelle told AP that markets had reopened but that cash and goods were in short supply. BBC Amharic reported that banks and businesses in Mekelle had mostly reopened and that phone and internet services had returned after a week, while residents of Shire said the town was calm and that neither federal nor Tigrayan forces were present.

The death toll from Saturday night’s drone strikes in Adwa has risen. Residents told BBC Amharic that 11 people were killed, nine at the scene and two who later died in hospital, in four rounds of strikes on the Segen Hotel (reported earlier as the Segenet) and the area around it, and that four of the dead were women. Reuters had earlier reported nine dead in Adwa. Zerit Assefa, who works at the Segen Hotel, said a vehicle in the hotel’s parking area was hit and that the people killed were drinking in a bar on the ground floor. “The attack was sudden and deeply upsetting. We saw the bodies with our own eyes,” he told the BBC. Witnesses said the Shewit International and Pan Africa hotels were also hit that night, causing damage but no casualties. The BBC said it could not independently verify who carried out the strikes or the number of dead, and the federal gov’t has not commented on them. The Critical Threats Project also reported strikes on Adigrat, Axum, Rama and Irob.

The air war may also be growing. AfriMEOSINT reported on Wednesday that an estimated four or five aircraft, which it said were apparently Ethiopian Air Force Su-27 fighters, had been deployed to Bahir Dar Airport since the fighting escalated in late September, and it posted satellite images in which, it said, the jets were absent on September 27 but visible from October 2. The report had not been independently verified.

The war is also spreading in Amhara. Residents of Mekane Selam in South Wollo told DW Amharic that heavy fighting between government forces and Fano took place on Monday from about 6:30 a.m. until after midday, and that a young girl was killed and her mother and father were seriously wounded when a shell hit their house. The resident who described the death said he did not know which side had fired. The Critical Threats Project said the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) had taken Wurgessa on the A2 highway and cut the B21 road at Mekane Selam, and Natna News reported that Fano had cut supply roads to Mekelle. The Ethiopian Conflict Map wrote on Wednesday that the AFNM had captured Mehal Meda in North Shewa, and an account that presents itself as the official page of the Amhara Fano supreme command (@AmharaArmy) claimed that the AFNM’s Shewa command had taken full control of Zemero and had released video of captured soldiers who surrendered. None of these claims had been confirmed by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF).

The UN said on Wednesday that hostilities continue to displace people across Central, North-Western and Eastern Tigray, although it has no verified figures. An opinion article in Addis Standard argued that the main development is “the convergence of Ethiopia’s previously separate conflicts,” warning that “once separate conflicts begin reinforcing one another, containing one becomes progressively more difficult because every new front changes the calculations on the others.” The Toronto-based news site borkena (@zborkena) promoted an opinion article on Wednesday with the title “The Death of TPLF Means Eritrea’s EPLF Is Half-Paralyzed.”

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Eritrean troops reported in Adigrat and moving south as federal and allied forces take Agula’e north of Mekelle

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