Ethiopian forces enter Adigrat, residents tell Reuters, as Eritrea asks UN Security Council to condemn “declaration of war”

Trucks carrying armed men move along a street in an image posted on X by AfriMEOSINT on October 9, 2026, in a post saying Ethiopian National Defense Force and Tigray Peace Force convoys had entered Shire, in Tigray’s Northwestern Zone. Mereja could not independently verify where or when it was taken. (Photo: AfriMEOSINT (@AfriMEOSINT) on X)

Ethiopian government forces and their militia allies entered Adigrat on Saturday, three residents told Reuters, as Eritrea asked the UN Security Council to condemn what it called Ethiopia’s declaration of war.

The residents said they had seen the Ethiopian army and an allied militia in the city on Saturday morning, and one of them said they saw soldiers on patrol along with military vehicles. Reuters said it could not confirm whether the army was in control of Adigrat, which lies about 30 kilometers from the Eritrean border. Ethiopia’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel posted on X on Saturday a letter from Foreign Minister Osman Saleh to the Security Council. The letter said that in its communications to the Council a day earlier, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry had formally informed members that it is “taking measures” to carry out a war of aggression that, in Eritrea’s view, Ethiopia declared against it three years ago. It said Ethiopia’s attempt to explain its actions in “self-defense” terms “is hollow in substance and constitutes an insult to the intelligence of the international community.”

Osman wrote that Ethiopia had moved “to incorporate and operationalize its long-planned invasion of Eritrea as part and parcel of the huge offensive it has unleashed in northern Ethiopia.” He asked the Council “to forcefully condemn Ethiopia’s deplorable declaration of war against Eritrea” and to “take the requisite deterrent measures against it in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”

The Ethiopian letter that Osman was answering was dated Friday and was signed by Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos, the Associated Press reported. Gedion invoked Ethiopia’s right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter but did not say what measures the country was taking, according to AP. The letter accused Eritrea of deploying infantry and mechanized units in recent weeks and of supporting, financing, arming and directing insurgent groups, but it did not identify the occupied areas or provide evidence, and AP said it could not verify the allegations. An earlier letter from Gedion, dated October 8, named three sectors of Tigray where Ethiopia says Eritrean troops crossed, from Badme, Sheraro and Shimelba in the northwest to Rama and Adwa in the center and Irob, Zalambessa and Idaga Hamus in the east, Deutsche Welle Amharic reported. The Reporter said that letter came with an evidence dossier.

Eritrea has said reports of an incursion are false and part of an Ethiopian plan to justify a war of aggression. Yemane said on Friday that Eritrea had shown restraint, and he accused Ethiopia of declaring a war of aggression by stating in 2023 that it would acquire sovereign access to the sea, Reuters reported. Explosions were reported near Adigrat on Wednesday and Thursday, when the conflict monitor ACLED said Ethiopia used drone strikes against Eritrean forces, who then withdrew from positions near the city.

Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing the alliance that has been fighting gov’t troops since September 23 in Tigray, Amhara and Afar. That alliance includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose fighters are known as the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF). Eritrea denies backing the rebels.

Critical Threats, a project of the American Enterprise Institute, said on X on Friday afternoon that it had “partially corroborated reports claiming that Eritrean forces had entered Tigray and advanced south through Adigrat before retreating north under Ethiopian drone pressure,” although it was “unable to fully confirm these claims.” It said federal forces had “advanced quickly north of Mekele and reached Adigrat without strong resistance,” and that “Ethiopia and Eritrea have each effectively framed the conflict in northern Ethiopia as a war between them and threat to each of their sovereignty.”

The advance on Adigrat came as federal forces were reported moving on other fronts. Ermiyas Ababu, a commander of the gov’t-allied Tigray Peace Force, told AP that gov’t and allied forces took Idaga Hamus early Friday and Abiy-Adi, in the Tembien area, on Thursday afternoon. Rich Tedd, who runs the open-source account AfriMEOSINT, wrote on Friday that the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and the Tigray Peace Force had entered Shire, the administrative center of Tigray’s Northwestern Zone, and that footage showed their convoys at Hayelom Square. He said earlier that day that federal forces were “confirmed to have taken control of Hawzen,” and he added that they were likely to advance toward Axum, writing: “The key question now is how long they can hold these gains once the TDF begins wearing them down.” The Ethiopian Conflict Map (@Ethiomapping), an account that says it tracks the war in real time, wrote on Saturday morning that federal forces had reached Atsbi and that the line of contact was now Adigrat and the area north and west of it toward Adwa.

Afar Times (@TheAfartimes) wrote on Saturday that the Eritrean army had massed large numbers of troops around Zalambessa in northern Tigray and around Bure and Bidu in the Afar region, “raising fears of large-scale clashes between the two armies,” in Mereja’s translation. Mereja could not verify the troop movements. On Saturday, Tedd wrote that a Vise Air Il-76TD cargo plane had flown from Al Reef Airbase in Abu Dhabi to Ethiopia.

Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, wrote on Saturday that “Adigrat is now also under ENDF control” and that Tigrayan forces in the north “increasingly risk being squeezed between the two state militaries.” He urged the federal gov’t “to offer a credible path out for TPLF fighters, commanders and political leaders willing to disengage,” including amnesty, demobilization and, in some cases, safe passage to a third country. “The objective should not be humiliation or revenge,” he wrote. Getachew Reda, who describes himself on X as Advisor Minister to the Prime Minister on Eastern African Affairs and is a former president of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration, wrote on Friday, quoting a post calling Eritrea’s moving of mechanized battalions into a neighboring country an act of war, that “Asmara has often perfected miscalculation into an art form.”

Naty Berhane Yifru posted a video on Saturday and wrote that Adigrat was now under the control of the federal army and the Tigray Peace Force, and that people, especially young people, were expressing relief and welcoming the troops. Mereja could not verify the video.

The U.S. Embassy in Asmara told Americans in Eritrea on Friday to “Have evacuation plans that do not rely on U.S. Government assistance,” citing “reports of continued fighting in northern Ethiopia, near the border with Eritrea,” in an alert shared on X by the journalist Martin Plaut. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on Friday night for an immediate end to the fighting in northern Ethiopia, saying he was deeply worried by reports of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia, UN News reported. Japan’s Foreign Ministry on Friday urged Ethiopia and Eritrea to show restraint and to settle their differences peacefully “in keeping with the spirit of the 2018 peace agreement,” Dawan Africa reported. Human Rights Watch and other civil society groups asked the UN Human Rights Council on Friday to hold a special session on Ethiopia, warning of “risks of repetition of the atrocity crimes documented during the 2020-2022 conflict.”

Sources:

Ethiopian forces enter Adigrat, residents tell Reuters, as Eritrea asks UN Security Council to condemn “declaration of war”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply