Tigray Government Says RSF Participated in Recent Federal Attack on Tigray Defense Forces at Shererina
In a statement released on August 3, 2026, the Tigray regional government accused Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti"), of fighting alongside Ethiopian federal troops during last weekend's clashes near Shererina, a town in western Tigray close to the Sudanese border. Tigray authorities framed the fighting not as an isolated border skirmish but as evidence of a deepening military alliance between Addis Ababa and one of the most heavily sanctioned and internationally condemned armed groups currently fighting in Africa.
Tigray's government says RSF fighters were present and active during the assault federal forces launched on Tigrayan positions around Shererina on August 1. The clashes, which began early Saturday, involved a Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) unit reportedly based across the border in Sudan exchanging heavy artillery, mechanized units, and drone fire with Ethiopian National Defense Force troops before fighting eased roughly 24 hours later. Tigrayan officials argue that Ethiopia's federal government did not act alone — that it drew on RSF manpower and firepower as part of the operation, a claim that, if accurate, would mark a significant escalation: it would mean a foreign paramilitary group already accused of some of the gravest atrocities of the past decade is now being deployed on Ethiopian soil against Ethiopian citizens.
The RSF is not, in Tigray's telling, an incidental or symbolic detail — it is central to the argument that the federal government is willing to import outside firepower to subdue Tigray. The RSF has been accused of aerial bombardments targeting civilian infrastructure in Sudan, and Sudan's government took the group's alleged primary backer, the UAE, to the International Court of Justice over allegations of complicity in genocide — a case dismissed on jurisdictional grounds rather than on the merits of the underlying atrocity allegations. Rights organizations have separately documented ethnically-targeted killings tied to the RSF's campaign in Darfur. Tigray's statement links this record directly to Ethiopia's conduct, alleging that Addis Ababa's willingness to fight alongside such a force — with the UAE named as a common sponsor — reflects a federal government prepared to escalate by any means to reassert control over the region and, by extension, to inject further instability into an already fragile Horn of Africa.
The accusation lands inside a broader diplomatic rupture between Ethiopia and Sudan. Sudan's military has separately accused Ethiopia of hosting drone strikes launched from Bahir Dar airport against targets including Khartoum's airport, and has accused the UAE of supplying the drones involved — accusations serious enough that Khartoum recalled its ambassador from Addis Ababa. Tigray's government presents its own accusation as consistent with that pattern: evidence, in its view, of an Ethiopian federal government operating in coordination with RSF-UAE networks against its own regional population, not just against Sudan's army.
The attached screenshot below shows the original statement from the Tigray regional government, written in Tigrigna.
