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The Tigray War (Tigrinya: ውግእ ትግራይ) is an ongoing civil war that began just before midnight on 3 November 2020 in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The Special Forces of the Tigray Regional government are fighting the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), the latter being aided by the Ethiopian Federal Police, regional police, and gendarmerie forces of the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions with the involvement of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF). The Tigrayan Special Forces received reinforcements from defecting ENDF soldiers, local militias, and civilian volunteers; they were integrated into the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF). All sides, particularly the ENDF, EDF, and TDF have committed war crimes during the conflict. Due to the onset of the war, a deep humanitarian crisis has developed.In 2019, to distance the country from ethnic federalism and ethnic nationalist politics, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed merged the ethnic and region-based constituent parties of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition and several opposition parties into his new Prosperity Party. The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a politically powerful entity that had dominated Ethiopian politics for 27 years as a repressive regime through a one-party dominant system, refused to join the new party. The TPLF then alleged that Abiy Ahmed became an illegitimate ruler because the general elections scheduled for 29 August 2020 were postponed to 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The TPLF, led by its chairman Debretsion Gebremichael, went ahead with regional elections in Tigray in September 2020 in defiance of the federal government, which then declared the Tigray election illegal.After a long build-up of Eritrean and Amhara forces on Tigray's borders, the actual fighting between Tigray forces and the Ethiopia-Eritrea-Amhara alliance began on 3 November 2020, with attacks on the federal Northern Command bases and headquarters of the ENDF in the Tigray Region by Tigray security forces. Counterattacks by the ENDF in Tigray were described as a police action by federal authorities. Federal forces captured Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray Region, on 28 November, after which Prime Minister Abiy declared the Tigray operation "over". The Tigray government stated in late November that it would continue fighting until the "invaders" are out, and on 28 June 2021 the Tigray Defense Forces retook Mekelle.Mass extrajudicial killings of civilians took place during November and December 2020 in and around Adigrat, Hagere Selam, in the Hitsats refugee camp, and in Humera, Mai Kadra Debre Abbay, and Axum. At least 10,000 people have died, and war rape has become a "daily" occurrence, with girls as young as 8, and women as old as 72, raped, often in front of their families.