Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Prize for his peacemaking with Eritrea, has confounded allies by resisting all attempts to dampen the ongoing military confrontation with a powerful northern insurgent group, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF effectively controlled the Ethiopian government from 1991 until February 2018, when it was driven from power by a surge of popular revolt. Global officials fear that the fighting between the TPLF and Abiy’s government forces may provoke widespread unrest in Ethiopia and a humanitarian crisis in the Horn; spark international war if neighboring states are drawn into the conflict; or cause Ethiopia to break apart like the former Yugoslavia.
