Mekelle፡Telaviv, Nairobi, Pretoria, London, (Tigray Herald).
Enough with the War: Tigray’s Youth Deserve a Future, Not Another Round of Bloodshed
By Tesema Nadew
Enough with the War: Tigray’s Youth Deserve a Future, Not Another Round of Bloodshed
As TPLF leaders parade for battle again, many in Tigray say: No more sacrifices, no more alliances with the enemy.
In the dust and silence that follow war, Tigray’s young generation stands at a crossroads weary, wounded, and searching for a future beyond the battlefield. Four years after the launch of the catastrophic conflict that ravaged the region, the drumbeats of another war are once again echoing through the mountains. TPLF-affiliated generals are organizing public military parades across towns and rural districts, reviving a language of resistance and martyrdom. But many in Tigray, particularly the youth, are no longer cheering. They are asking: When does the cycle end?
The call from the ground is clear: enough with the war, enough with the death, enough with the sacrifices. A generation that has already paid too high a price through lost lives, broken families, shattered education deserves not another mobilization, but the chance to rebuild, dream, and thrive. What Tigray’s youth demand now is peace, prosperity, development, and technological advancement not more funerals, not another round of displacement.
The Return of the Generals, and the Return of Fear
Across parts of Tigray, especially in central and western zones, TPLF-affiliated commanders have resumed public displays of force. With songs, speeches, and camouflaged columns, they are trying to rekindle the wartime spirit. But the social mood has shifted. Survivors of the last war young fighters who returned home traumatized, families still mourning their sons and daughters are no longer certain this is the path forward.
The images of generals marching in fatigues stand in stark contrast to the streets of Mekelle, where electricity remains unstable, schools are struggling to reopen, and youth unemployment runs high. For many, the parade of power looks more like a repeat of history a history that keeps asking young Tigrayans to die, without ever letting them live.
An Unholy Alliance with the Old Enemy
What makes the current mobilization even more troubling is the TPLF’s reported coordination with the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) Eritrea’s ruling regime, long regarded as the historical enemy of the Tigrayan people. During the two-year war, Eritrean forces were implicated in some of the worst atrocities committed in Tigray: extrajudicial killings, mass rapes, looting of cultural heritage, and scorched-earth tactics.
For TPLF leaders to now entertain even indirect military coordination or shared objectives with Asmara is viewed by many as a betrayal one that tramples on the memory of genocide survivors and undermines the very justification of Tigray’s initial resistance. Peace cannot be built through alliances with those who waged war on Tigrayan civilians.
What the Youth Want
Tigrayan youth do not want to die in another man’s war. They want to build something of their own a future shaped by education, science, technology, and open borders for trade, not tanks. They want broadband, not bullets. Universities, not command posts. Clean energy, not conscription.
Over the past two decades, many in the region had begun to imagine a Tigray that could become a hub of solar power, biotechnology, software development, and diaspora-driven investment. That dream has been shelved too many times. It is time to bring it back.
Accountability, Not Authoritarian Nostalgia
As calls for peace grow louder, so does the need for accountability not just for atrocities committed by federal and Eritrean forces, but for those made possible by the silence or complicity of the TPLF leadership. The party cannot rebrand itself as a savior while evading responsibility for the decisions that led to catastrophe.
If TPLF continues to militarize the public sphere and suppress political alternatives, it risks becoming indistinguishable from the autocratic forces it once fought. A truly democratic Tigray must create space for youth voices, civic leadership, and new political actors untainted by the blood of past wars.
The Path Forward: Peace, Not Provocation
For Tigray to rise, it must break the cycle. That means rejecting endless mobilization and rejecting alliances with regimes like the PFDJ. It means facing the pain of the past with honesty but choosing the future with courage.
A nation that buries its youth in battle cannot expect to raise its people in peace. The youth of Tigray are not weapons. They are the architects of tomorrow. The region’s leaders TPLF and others must listen, or risk losing the very people they claim to defend.
The time has come for Tigray to turn its back on war, and walk toward a different kind of victory one measured not in battles won, but in lives lived fully.
