After Four Years Of Fragile Peace, Ethiopia Flirts With War Again

On August 1, as Ethiopia’s national dialogue entered its third week, the sound of artillery and drones cast a dark shadow over what was being said in the dialogue’s plenary halls. Fighting erupted before dawn around Shererina, a small town in Tigray near the Sudanese border, between the Ethiopian National Defense Force and Tigrayan forces, including a unit reported to be based across the border in Sudan. The clashes reportedly involved heavy artillery, mechanized units, and drone strikes, lasted roughly eleven hours, and sent hundreds of civilians fleeing across the border into Sudan before a fragile calm returned. Each side blamed the other for firing first. Neither claim has been independently verified. What is not in dispute is the significance of the moment: many agree it is the most serious confrontation in northern Ethiopia since the 2022 Pretoria agreement and could mark either a coercive show of force or the opening move of a wider campaign.