Young men flee Tigray amid fears of forced recruitment 

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.

Leaving before they are taken

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.

“I left behind my siblings, who depended on me, and a business I had sacrificed so much to build.”

He says he does not want to return unless he can bring his family with him.

“I don’t want to go back. In fact, if I can, I want to bring my family and my siblings here with me.”

Those who remember the battlefield

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.”

He says reports that former combatants were being called back increased his fears.

“Former combatant friends were being called back to the army and I heard some had been taken away forcibly. I was afraid I would be next, so I left my hometown and moved to Mekelle, hoping I would not get identified here.”

Unlike Shewit and Gebru, he has not left Tigray. But he says his experience of the previous war makes the prospect of another mobilisation difficult to contemplate.

“I know what the battlefield looks like. I don’t want to go back there and risk not coming home.”

A wider pattern

Human Rights Watch says the recruitment allegations extend beyond former fighters to civilians and young people.

“We found that both former fighters but also civilians – young men, sometimes boys – were being abducted, detained,” said Laetitia Bader, the organisation’s Horn of Africa director. “Sometimes in the streets, in marketplaces, also in mining areas which is an important form of livelihood in the region.”

Bader said Human Rights Watch had documented cases involving minors as young as 15.

The organisation also said a mobilisation proclamation introduced in June criminalised desertion and attempts by relatives to prevent loved ones from being conscripted.

For young people who survived the previous war, Bader said, the reported recruitment was another reason to flee.

“The forced conscription continues to have an impact. Young people continue to try to flee the region not only because of the forced conscription but also the devastating humanitarian situation in the region,” she said.

The TPLF has disputed allegations of forced recruitment, saying young people were joining voluntarily. TPLF spokesman Michael Asgedom previously described the allegations as a “mistaken narrative”.

Al Jazeera contacted Asgedom for a response to the allegations in this story, but he did not respond to calls or text messages.

From recruitment to another war?

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.

“The emergence of forced conscription at this particular moment should not be understood simply as a military recruitment exercise,” he said. “It is better understood as a symptom of the deeper political and security crisis that has developed around the incomplete implementation of the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement.”

Gidey said the agreement had stopped large-scale fighting but had not resolved all the political and security issues surrounding the post-war period.

“The present situation demonstrates that Pretoria produced an effective cessation of large-scale warfare but an incomplete peace settlement,” he said.

He said continued mobilisation could create a cycle in which insecurity fuels military recruitment, which then deepens insecurity.

“Political insecurity generates military mobilisation; military mobilisation reinforces political insecurity; political insecurity then becomes an argument for further mobilisation,” Gidey said.

For the young men interviewed by Al Jazeera, however, the question is less about the political calculations driving mobilisation than about whether they can avoid being pulled back into war.

Gebru says leaving became his way of protecting himself.

“After what happened, I knew I could not stay there and live normally. I felt that the only way to protect myself was to leave.”

Shewit is now in Addis Ababa, separated from his family and the life he had been rebuilding.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I left because I wanted to have a chance to build a future.”

Gebrehiwot, who remains in Tigray, says his hopes are simpler.

“I don’t want anything extraordinary. I just want to live peacefully, stay with my family and never have to pick up a gun again.”