ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the first five months of the war between the Ethiopian central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)-led government of the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in 2020–2021. It analyses how the Ethiopian government produced a euphemized vision of the conflict in order to mobilize civil population and gain support for the war. The chapter shows how renewed regional tensions and alliances took part in shaping the conflict, also paying attention to the tentative reaction of Western donors. It concludes on a development on the role of Amhara nationalist movements which seized this opportunity to put their irredentist project into practice.
