Fearing Forced Recruitment, Young Men Flee Ethiopia's Tigray Region

Shewit, 24, who says he fled Tigray because he feared forced recruitment by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), at his apartment after an interview with Al Jazeera in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Tigray, Ethiopia – Gebru, 27, says he was taken from his neighbourhood to a local administration office with other young men. His parents feared he would be sent to fight and searched for a way to get him out. They eventually paid to secure his release, he says. “I was taken to the office with other young men. My parents found a way to get me released by paying 20,000 [Ethiopian] birr ($123) in cash.”

After he was released, Gebru left Tigray for Addis Ababa. “My parents were afraid that if I stayed, I would be taken again. They told me to leave Tigray and save myself.” Gebru is among young men who say they are leaving Tigray because they fear being forcibly recruited to fight as political and military tensions rise in the northern Ethiopian region.

Nearly four years after the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement ended the war between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), reports of forced recruitment and military mobilisation have raised fears among young conflict survivors that they could once again be drawn into fighting. The African Union-brokered agreement ended two years of war in Tigray, but key issues – including contested territory, the return of displaced people and the disarmament of Tigrayan forces – remain unresolved.

Human Rights Watch reported in July that Tigrayan authorities and forces had forcibly recruited civilians, including children as young as 15, since at least April. The organisation documented cases involving former combatants and other men and boys who it said were taken from streets, homes, workplaces and gold-mining areas.

The allegations come as tensions between the federal government and the TPLF have risen, with both sides accusing the other of military mobilisation. Heavy fighting was also reported near Ethiopia’s border with Sudan in August. For some young men, the response has been to leave.

Shewit, 24, had been trying to rebuild his life after the war. He was studying at Mekelle University, running a language-class business he had started about a year earlier and helping to look after his younger siblings. But as reports of recruitment and military mobilisation increased, he said staying in Tigray began to feel unsafe. “I had already survived one war. I didn’t want to go through another,” he told Al Jazeera. He eventually left for Addis Ababa, leaving behind his family, his studies and his business.

Gebrehiwot, 28, is still in Tigray. He fought during the previous war but says he does not want to return to the battlefield. He says the experience changed the way he viewed the war’s political and military leadership, particularly after seeing wounded fighters and families of dead soldiers struggle after the fighting ended. “We were told that we were fighting for our people, but after the war ended, I saw wounded fighters and families of the dead being abandoned.”

Human Rights Watch says the recruitment allegations extend beyond former fighters to civilians and young people. Laetitia Bader, the organisation’s Horn of Africa director, said cases involving minors as young as 15 had been documented. The TPLF has disputed allegations of forced recruitment, saying young people were joining voluntarily, and described the allegations as a “mistaken narrative”.

Muauz Gidey Alemu, an assistant professor of political science and lead researcher at the Tigray Institute of Policy Studies, said the recruitment should be understood within a broader political and security crisis that followed the Pretoria Agreement. For the young men interviewed by Al Jazeera, however, the question is whether they can avoid being pulled back into war.