Ethiopia’s federal army and pro-government fighters have recaptured the main airport in Mekelle, the capital of the northern Tigray region, with rebel fighters seen leaving the city, according to multiple unnamed sources. One source with knowledge of events in the city and one humanitarian source told Reuters on Saturday that the Ethiopian National Defence Forces had regained control of Alula Aba Nega Airport, Al Jazeera reports.
We have taken full control of Mekelle Alula Aba Nega Airport. We are currently clearing the city of Mekelle.
That claim, from the pro-government Tigray Peace Forces militia in a post on X late on Friday, was reported by Reuters, which said it could not immediately verify the assertion. It is worth being plain about how information moves in this war: through militia posts on social media, through unnamed sources, and rarely through anything journalists can independently confirm.
If the claim holds, it reverses what happened less than two weeks ago, when Tigrayan forces seized airports across the region in the opening moves of what has become Ethiopia’s second war in Tigray in four years. The previous conflict formally ended with a peace agreement in 2022; that settlement has since collapsed, and the fighting has drawn in a shifting cast of federal troops, regional militias and rebel factions. The escalation has also spilled into diplomacy: this week Eritrea severed all ties with Addis Ababa as the fighting spread.
An airport in a landlocked regional capital is not just a strip of tarmac. It is the supply line: for troops and weapons, but also for food, medicine and the aid workers who deliver them. Whoever holds Alula Aba Nega holds Mekelle’s connection to the rest of the country, which is why the same runway has now changed hands twice in a fortnight.
For now, the airport has a new owner, if the people making the claim are to be believed. In this war, that distinction has repeatedly mattered.