Rounded up on the streets: Tigray's rebel alliance is forcing boys as young as 15 into the ranks

As fighting spreads across northern Ethiopia, reports are emerging that a new alliance of armed groups in Tigray has been forcibly recruiting men and boys to its ranks. Civilians trying to flee the renewed conflict describe men and boys being rounded up on the streets and pressed into service as the war, which reignited on September 23 between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, widens. Human Rights Watch says the recruitment allegations extend beyond former fighters to civilians and young people. The organisation's Horn of Africa director, Laetitia Bader, said researchers had documented cases in which former fighters and civilians, including young men and sometimes boys, were 'abducted, detained', sometimes on the streets, sometimes in marketplaces and in mining areas, an important source of livelihood in the region. Bader said the organisation had documented cases involving minors as young as 15. She added that a mobilisation proclamation introduced in June had criminalised desertion and even attempts by relatives to prevent loved ones from being conscripted. For young people who survived the previous war, the reported recruitment is another reason to flee. Bader said forced conscription continued to drive young people out of the region, compounding a devastating humanitarian situation. The TPLF has disputed the allegations of forced recruitment, saying young people were joining voluntarily. TPLF spokesman Michael Asgedom previously described the allegations as a 'mistaken narrative' and did not respond to requests for comment on the latest reports. The forcible recruitment of children is a war crime under international law, whatever the cause in whose name it is done. It comes as the conflict enters its most dangerous phase since the 2020-2022 civil war, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. On October 4, federal troops and the allied Tigray Peace Force retook the regional capital Mekelle, which the TPLF-led alliance had seized on September 23; the TPLF said its regional government had 'temporarily moved out' of the city. Addis Ababa has meanwhile severed diplomatic ties with Eritrea and accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the rebels, charges all three countries deny. As the fighting spreads, it is civilians, and now children, who are being fed into it. The world watched Tigray burn once before; it cannot claim surprise this time.