Addis Ababa, October 22, 2026 (FMC) — For decades, the defunct TPLF has sought to chain the fate, security, and future of the people of Tigray Region to its own political survival. It has tried to convince them that their identity, dignity, and very existence depend on its continued grip on power.
Today, that narrative is being shattered as the people begin to break free from the shackles of a group whose destructive political legacy has brought repeated conflict, immense suffering, and lost opportunities for peace and development.
The people of Tigray Region existed for millennia before the emergence of the illegal TPLF, and they will continue to live, build, and prosper long after its political project has run its course.
No group can claim ownership of an entire people or hold their future hostage to its own ambitions. The history, identity, and destiny of Tigray Region belong to its people—not to a political organization that has repeatedly placed its own interests above their well-being.
The growing demand for peace reflects this fundamental truth. The people of Tigray Region want to rebuild their lives, restore normality, educate their children, revive their livelihoods, and pursue development without the constant threat of another war. They want a future in which young people can work toward their dreams rather than be drawn into another cycle of violence. Their aspirations cannot be sacrificed indefinitely to the political calculations of the rogue TPLF.
The voices of mothers who have rejected further war and the sacrifice of their children carry particular weight. These are families that have endured loss and suffering and know the devastating cost of conflict.
Their rejection of another round of bloodshed is a powerful reminder that the people of Tigray Region have their own aspirations and are unwilling to let the banned TPLF dictate their future through fear, manipulation, and the threat of renewed war.
For too long, the defunct TPLF has presented itself as the sole guardian of the people of Tigray Region while tying their fate to a politics of confrontation.
Yet the people’s desire for peace exposes the deep divide between their hopes and the group’s political agenda. A population that longs for stability and reconstruction cannot be held indefinitely captive by a leadership that continues to make political survival the overriding concern.
The Pretoria Agreement, signed on November 2, 2022, was intended to end hostilities and establish a path toward lasting peace. The source account maintains that the illegal TPLF violated the agreement and continued to pursue a confrontational course.
It also charges the group with exploiting displaced people as political leverage and diverting humanitarian resources toward military purposes. Such conduct, if sustained, deepens the suffering of ordinary people and undermines the very peace that Tigray Region urgently needs.
Repeated confrontation has exacted a devastating price. The people have borne the consequences in lives lost, families disrupted, livelihoods destroyed, and development delayed.
The prospect of yet another war offers them no credible path to a better future. What is increasingly clear is that the people of Tigray Region have every reason to reject a political course that threatens to condemn another generation to the same cycle of suffering.
Breaking free from the shackles of the rogue TPLF is therefore about far more than a change in political circumstances.
It is about reclaiming the right to live in peace, determining the region’s future without coercion, and redirecting the energy of its people toward reconstruction and prosperity. It is about ending the false equation between the survival of the people and the survival of a political group.
Against this backdrop, the federal government’s plan to establish a caretaker administration for Tigray Region for six months is presented as a step toward consolidating peace and creating conditions for recovery and development.
The central challenge is to ensure that the region’s people can move forward in an environment where their daily lives, public services, livelihoods, and future prospects are no longer subordinated to the demands of political confrontation.
Peace must now become more than an aspiration. It must be reflected in the lives of families returning to normal routines, children attending school without fear, young people finding opportunities, and communities rebuilding what years of conflict have damaged.
The people of Tigray Region deserve the chance to direct their collective strength toward these goals rather than remain trapped in an endless struggle for the political survival of the defunct TPLF.
The people’s break from the illegal TPLF’s politics of deception opens a window for a different future—one shaped by peace, development, dignity, and hope. The shackles that once bound their fate to the group’s ambitions need not define the generations to come. Their future is larger than any political organization, and their aspirations extend far beyond the narrow confines of a politics built around confrontation.
For the people of Tigray Region, the emerging ray of hope lies in reclaiming their own destiny: choosing peace over renewed conflict, reconstruction over destruction, and a future of opportunity over continued subordination to the ambitions of the defunct TPLF. Their history did not begin with the group, and their future must not be held hostage to it.