Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, center, with officials in a photo the Office of the Prime Minister posted on X on October 16, 2026, alongside its announcement of a six-month federal trustee administration for Tigray. (Photo: Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia via X)
Ethiopia's federal government said on Friday that the three-week war in Tigray has ended and named a trustee administration to run the region for six months and prepare an election.
The Office of the Prime Minister announced the move in an Amharic statement on X on Friday morning. It said the House of Federation had decided, under Article 62(9) of the Constitution and Article 14(2)(b) of Proclamation No. 359/1995, that a temporary administration should be set up in Tigray, and that the Council of Ministers, using the authority the House gave it, had created the Federal Government Trustee Administration of Tigray Region by regulation.
The statement said repeated efforts to settle the conflict under the Pretoria agreement had failed because of obstruction by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). "The destructive war that the TPLF leadership, which did not want peace, started for the fourth time has ended for the fourth time in TPLF defeat," the office said. Reuters, translating another line of the statement, reported that it said the people of Tigray "must break free from this cycle of conflict" to win peace, self-administration and the benefits of development.
The office named Assefa Abraha Hagos as chief executive for administration and public services, Dr. Tewodros Aregay Woldeselassie for economy and reconstruction, and Brigadier General Gebreegziabher Beyene Hailu for security and peace. Redae Halefom Woldeselassie was named chief executive for politics and public organization, and Dr. Shishay Amare was appointed mayor of Mekelle.
Under the ten tasks the office listed, the new body is to end the security crisis quickly, rebuild government structures that it said had collapsed, repair war-damaged infrastructure, return displaced people to their homes and restart social services that had stopped. It is also to create the conditions for a "free and transparent election" within six months so that Tigray can become a regular member of the federation again. Working with the federal defense, police and intelligence services and with Tigray's security forces, it is to help armed fighters hand in their weapons, return to civilian life and go through rehabilitation, and to rebuild the regional security structure from the region down to the kebele. It will also coordinate media work and organize public forums.
Until an elected government is formed, the administration will not act on matters with long-term strategic implications beyond providing daily services and preparing for the election, the statement said, and it will work under the direction, guidance, support and follow-up of the federal government.
BBC Amharic reported that the administration was set up less than a month after the Pretoria agreement collapsed and war broke out again between Tigrayan forces and the federal army in late September. Within weeks, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and the allied Tigray Peace Force took control of most of Tigray, the broadcaster said. Article 10 of the Pretoria agreement provided for an inclusive interim administration, formed through political dialogue between the federal government and the TPLF, until an election is held in Tigray. BBC Amharic said Friday's announcement shows the agreement is no longer in effect, although the federal government has never formally declared it dead. The TPLF had earlier declared the deal broken and removed the interim administration that the federal government set up, according to the broadcaster.
Article 14(2)(b) of the 1995 proclamation allows the federal government to suspend a region's council and its highest executive body and to set up a temporary administration that answers to the federal government, BBC Amharic explained. The broadcaster recalled that Getachew Reda said last week, after TPLF leaders left Mekelle and several other towns, that the region would remain under a federal command post and that an election would be held in Tigray.
A TPLF spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported. The news agency said about 750,000 Tigrayans were still internally displaced as of February, according to the UN refugee agency, and that the region also faces drought linked to El Nino.
Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, wrote on X that he supports giving the caretaker administration "the opportunity to succeed, but it should be judged by what it delivers within its six-month mandate." He added: "Military success against an armed organisation is not the same as achieving a political settlement." Jawar said officials in the administration should not "use public office for party competition," and that the mandate "should not become another open-ended political arrangement."
Rich Tedd, who runs the open-source account AfriMEOSINT, wrote on X on Friday that an ENDF drone strike "two days ago" hit Enda Selassie Church in Semema, in Adet district of Tigray's Central Zone, and posted the coordinates 13.8837614, 38.6445577. Mereja could not independently verify the claim. In a separate post, he said the ENDF had displayed a portable counter-drone and drone detection system made by China's Hangzhou Star Sea Technology, which it said had been seized from the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF).
At a camp for displaced people in Mekelle known as 70 Kare, which shelters about 65,000 people, one resident told DW Amharic: "Now there is peace, peace has settled." The UN humanitarian office, OCHA, said in a statement on Wednesday that the security situation in Tigray, Amhara and Afar is still not stable, and that continued fighting, looting and damage to health facilities remain among its main concerns, DW Amharic reported.
Sources
- Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia on X, trustee administration statement, October 16, 2026
- BBC Amharic, federal government says Tigray war over and sets up trustee administration, October 16, 2026
- Reuters via CNBC Africa, George Obulutsa, October 16, 2026
- The Reporter, six-month caretaker administration
- The Reporter on X
- Ethiopian News Agency
- Capital Ethiopia, October 16, 2026
- Jawar Mohammed on X
- Martin Plaut on X
- AfriMEOSINT on X, Semema church strike
- AfriMEOSINT on X, counter-drone system
- DW Amharic, humanitarian aid in northern Ethiopia, October 15, 2026