{"id":837385,"date":"2026-10-07T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=837385"},"modified":"2026-10-07T14:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T18:09:09","slug":"witnesses-say-tigrayan-forces-are-seizing-boys-as-young-as-15-for-the-front-as-addis-ababa-urges-fighters-to-report-to-a-mekelle-demobilization-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/837385","title":{"rendered":"Witnesses say Tigrayan forces are seizing boys as young as 15 for the front as Addis Ababa urges fighters to report to a Mekelle demobilization center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Selam<\/p>\n

Selam Street in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, January 2018 (A.Savin, via Wikimedia Commons, Free Art License) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Armed men serving the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) are rounding up boys as young as 15 at gunpoint to send them to the front, residents of Tigray told The Guardian. The federal gov’t’s National Rehabilitation Commission has called on fighters it describes as forcibly conscripted to give up their weapons and report to a demobilization center that it says has been prepared near Mekelle.<\/p>\n

In the report by the journalist Lucy Kassa, published on Tuesday, witnesses who spoke under false names for their safety described a campaign of forced recruitment as the war that resumed on September 23 spread across the region. “I have seen the armed group of the TPLF rounding up people as young as 15 and 16 at gunpoint from the streets and public transportation areas,” said a 52-year-old man the paper called Solomon, who added that “they forcefully recruit anyone whose hands, eyes and feet work.” A 40-year-old man called Ephrem said, “People who have money protect themselves and their children from the forced recruitment by bribing the officers.” A 34-year-old former fighter called Gezu said he had refused to go back, telling the recruiters “to kill me rather than ever force me back to the horrors of the battlefield.”<\/p>\n

The Guardian also wrote that Eritrean forces and Amhara militias were now fighting in support of the TPLF. Eritrea has denied taking part in the war, and the TPLF has in the past denied that it recruits fighters by force.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch documented similar accounts before the fighting started again. In a report published in July, the group said it had documented six cases and carried out 18 interviews, and that the Tigrayan authorities had issued a proclamation in June 2026 that made military service compulsory. “The Tigrayan authorities’ campaign to forcibly recruit men and boys into their forces is creating a climate of fear throughout the region,” said Laetitia Bader, the group’s Horn of Africa director. A TPLF spokesperson told Human Rights Watch at the time that there was no forced recruitment and that the fighters were volunteers, while the London institute Chatham House, according to DW Amharic, has listed forced recruitment among Tigray’s crises.<\/p>\n

The National Rehabilitation Commission has also called on fighters to leave the ranks, with its deputy commissioner, Brigadier General Derbie Mekuriaw, addressing what state media translated as “members of army units or forcibly conscripted” fighters in Tigray on Tuesday. “By exiting this chaotic life and stepping out from the fire of war and reporting to the Defense Force, you can enter the demobilization centers prepared. There is a demobilization center prepared around Mekelle,” he said, according to the Ethiopian News Agency, adding that fighters could enter the rehabilitation center “starting tomorrow,” meaning from Wednesday. DW Amharic reported that he told state media that fighters could report to the army in groups or one by one, and that after handing over their weapons and any other military equipment they could go to the center in Mekelle. The general said the federal gov’t had set aside a budget for the program and that the international community was supporting it. The commission did not say how many fighters had reported so far.<\/p>\n

The demobilization program was first launched after the federal government and the TPLF signed the Pretoria agreement in November 2022, but it stopped as the gap between the two sides widened, DW Amharic noted. The state-affiliated Fana Media Corporation gave the Guardian report wide coverage on Wednesday under a headline calling the TPLF an “illegal” group, the term the federal gov’t now uses for it.<\/p>\n

Jawar Mohammed (@Jawar_Mohammed), a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, wrote on X on Tuesday about what he called a “Counterinsurgency Triangle” of the Tigray Peace Force, the Gadaa Commando and the Amhara Peace Force, describing a pattern that he said he had been watching take shape across Tigray, Oromia and Amhara involving former rebel commanders and fighters who switched sides.<\/p>\n

Addis Standard Amharic (@addisstandardam), the Amharic service of Addis Standard, reported on Wednesday that the renewed conflict in Tigray has left children disabled, under the headline “The sound still hasn’t left my mind,” and described a 10-year-old girl named Eyerusalem lying in a hospital bed with her amputated legs bandaged. A resident of Mekelle told DW Amharic that a young boy was injured in the face and one eye when a bullet he found on the ground exploded as he was hitting it. The opposition party Salsay Weyane Tigray called on the international community to press for an end to drone strikes, warned that people in Tigray face famine, and asked that wounded fighters and civilians receive urgent medical care, DW Amharic reported.<\/p>\n

A Mekelle resident the Guardian called Negus said the banks had reopened but limited withdrawals to 2,000 birr a day. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) said last week that the freeze placed on bank accounts opened in Tigray was “a big violation,” DW Amharic reported.<\/p>\n

Tom Gardner (@TomGardner18), the Africa correspondent of The Economist, wrote on October 2 that he was “getting v credible reports” that the TPLF was trying to move four senior generals it had detained in Mekelle, whom he named as Tadesse Worede, Colonel Gebre, Tewolde Gebretensae and Isayas Tadesse, “ostensibly for ‘somewhere safe'” as it left the city, and that the detainees were “refusing to open their doors.” Where the four men are now had not been independently verified.<\/p>\n

The Amhara Association of America, in a statement shared on X on Tuesday by its communications director Robel Alemu (PhD) (@TheFitawrari), said political prisoners moved to the Kilinto, Kaliti and Aba Samuel prisons in Addis Ababa faced “harsh and inhumane conditions.”<\/p>\n

In Oromia, Addis Standard reported that federal police opened fire on residents of the Goobicha neighborhood of Negele Borana on Tuesday during a raid on informal traders, killing a 17-year-old and wounding at least six other people. An official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the shooting and said an investigation was under way.<\/p>\n

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