Ethiopia’s war in Tigray has ended, but deep faultlines remain

Inside hisTPLF makeshift hut, Fisseha Gebreselassie contemplates all he has lost. Days after Ethiopia’s in November 2020, Ethiopian soldiers killed his 12-year-old son in front of him. Fearing for his life, he fled Tigray, the northern region at the centre of the fighting, for Sudan, leaving behind his wife and three remaining children, hoping they would be safe. But militiamen from the neighbouring Amhara region soon seized their home, forced them onto a truck and drove them across the river to central Tigray.More than two years later, the family is still separated. A peace deal has raised hopes that Fisseha and thousands like him might be able to go home. It has stopped both the fighting and a blockade of Tigray by federal forces that led to probably hundreds of thousands of deaths from bombs, bullets or war-induced famine and disease. By resetting relations between the two main belligerents—Ethiopia’s government and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front ()—the deal is also reshaping alliances inside Ethiopia and perhaps the wider region.