The Conflict Testing Ethiopia’s Nobel-Winning Leader

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been at loggerheads with leaders of the northern Tigray region since 2020. Their forces fought each other for more than 16 months before a truce was declared in March. It unraveled in August when the two sides accused each other of staging fresh attacks. Fighting persisted until African Union brokered another truce in November. The conflict has pushed millions of people into hunger and tarnished Abiy’s once-illustrious reputation as a Nobel laureate.

Abiy started with a bang when he became Ethiopia’s prime minister in 2018. He scrapped bans on opposition and rebel groups, purged allegedly corrupt officials and ended two decades of acrimony with neighboring Eritrea, an initiative that won him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. He also welcomed foreign capital to maintain momentum in one of the world’s fastest-expanding economies. But he struggled to contain ethnic tensions, and his attempts to sideline the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, once the nation’s preeminent power broker, led to civil war. The conflict stalled planned economic reforms and prompted the US government to impose sanctions on Ethiopia and withdraw its duty-free market access. The nation’s misery has been compounded by the worst drought in four decades and soaring grain and fuel prices.