Gold and Guns: How Military Rule, Foreign Deals, and a Looming Crisis Plunder Post-War Tigray

by Kaleab Girma and Ashenafi Endale

Part 2
Gold and Guns: Aftershocks of War

Kelali is a former soldier turned gold miner, one of thousands navigating life after war in Tigray. A combatant with the Tigray Defense Forces, Kelali fought in the bloody conflict against the federal government. Like many others, his return to civilian life offered no structure, and no resources.

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The war destroyed Tigray and our old way of life,” Kelali said. “After the war, there was nothing we could do. And there was nothing the military leadership could offer us in return for our sacrifice or for our future.

Kelali, ex-combatant

Kelali, who asked to be identified by his first name for his security, is a father in his early thirties and also responsible for caring for his mother, whose younger son also served in the war.

In the last few years, large amounts of gold have been smuggled from Ethiopia’s Tigray region, with an estimated valued of over $2 billion for the 2024/25 fiscal year alone. This figure could rebuild schools, fund hospitals, and revitalize the war-torn region. Instead, it lines the pockets of a few powerful generals and foreign actors.

Today, deadly clashes are occurring over these precious resources. Illegal mining has ravaged mountains in Tigray, with miners pouring massive quantities of mercury into rivers, threatening both the environment and public health.

Backed by foreign partners and enabled by weak oversight, the system persists—rooted in the war’s legacy and propped up by flows of gold to markets in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.  

The Tigray War, which broke out in November 2020, marked one of the deadliest conflicts in recent African history. It pitted Ethiopia’s federal government under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a once-dominant political force.

Between 2020 and 2022, the conflict devastated Tigray and surrounding regions. An estimated 600,000 people lost their lives, and more than 3 million were displaced. The war also drew in external actors, notably the Eritrean military, which fought alongside federal forces. All sides were accused of gross human rights abuses, including mass killings, widespread sexual violence, and the deliberate destruction of infrastructure.

On November 2, 2022, a peace agreement was signed between the federal government and the TPLF in Pretoria, South Africa. While large-scale fighting ceased, substantive progress on the full agreement has been limited. Much of Tigray remains in ruins. Political instability continues to cast a long shadow.

In the absence of other economic opportunities, regional authorities allowed ex-fighters of the Tigray Defense Force (TDF) to form mining cooperatives, typically bands of 25 people, and allocated plots of land to mine gold either manually or with basic equipment.

“We mine the gold using traditional manual methods,” Kelali explained. “Then we sell it at local markets.”

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We mine the gold using traditional manual methods. Then we sell it at local markets.

Kelali

The town of Shire in northwestern Tigray, epicenter of Tigray’s black-market gold trade, serves as a collection and distribution point, with artisanal mining concentrated within a 100 kilometer radius.

At Shire’s bustling black-market gold hub, located just off the main road leading toward Hayelom Square, small scale miners openly sell their gold to buyers.

The market gets busy around 3 p.m., as buyers and sellers call their sources to check gold prices on world markets. Transactions occur openly and are settled through cash or checks, with larger buyers often purchasing on credit and paying the miners after smuggling the gold abroad.

In mid-March, a gram of gold went for around $106, roughy 25 percent higher than the government-set price. Kelali states that the prices are tied to black market exchange rates and foreign gold prices, particularly those in Dubai, instead of the official local rates.

In Ethiopia, individuals or entities with the proper licenses can buy gold. But only the National Bank of Ethiopia is allowed to export gold under the law.

A 2024 report by Khermed Law Firm, a Tigrayan firm that investigated illegal mining, estimated that over 100,000 traditional artisanal gold miners are operating in the region.

But Kelali explains these small-scale mining operations are just a tip of the iceberg. “Top TDF generals have seized control of the most gold-rich areas,” he said. They employ armed ex-combatants to protect their holdings.

“The involvement of civilian and military leaders in illegal mining and looting is a major factor contributing to this crisis,” the Khermed report found.

Major gold sites in Rahwa, Hintsats, Meli, and Mato Bula have been heavily militarized, with outside access strictly prohibited. Guards use reflective signals and fire warning shots to deter intruders, allowing in only select personnel, such as generals, trusted TDF members, partners, and intermediaries. International NGOs must receive high-level approval to access the area, with visits typically limited to humanitarian aid deliveries, said Tedros Kahsay, an ex-TDF combatant currently heading security for an  NGO active in Tigray, with clearance to enter these regions.

“The narrative that the generals gave the gold land for TDF is just a coverup. The administration is using this as an excuse, claiming all the gold land is given to TDF,” Tedros said. 

In practice, “the top gold-bearing land is being operated by the generals,” he said, adding that soldiers received the least promising areas to mine.

Riches at Stake

Before the outbreak of war, Tigray was among the largest suppliers of gold to the National Bank of Ethiopia. The region held the most licenses to mine gold in Ethiopia, with over 90 licenses registered, according to the Ministry of Mines.

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There are numerous illegal groups currently in control of mining sites across Tigray. These actors operate without any form of licensing, yet they dominate the sites through armed force, particularly targeting gold extraction

Fisaha Miresa - Director of the Tigray Mining Bureau

Numerous illegal and unlicensed groups control of mining sites across Tigray, said Fisaha Miresa, a Director of the Tigray Mining Bureau, “yet they dominate the sites through armed force, particularly targeting gold extraction.”

“They possess heavy machinery, including excavators, and operate the gold mining sites around the clock,” he said.

The extent of illegal mining has surpassed the regional government’s capacity to manage or contain it, he said.

Many here blame the prevailing lawlessness in Tigray on internal divisions among members of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Though the Pretoria Agreement put an end to the war, it has also exposed deep rifts within the TPLF itself, as it faced existential questions about its role in the conflict and its ability to lead in its aftermath. 

At the heart of the division is a clash of factions, one led by Debretsion Gebremichael and the other by Getachew Reda. This collapse of governance structures in Tigray, compounded by the militarization of key mining sites, has created a vacuum of legitimacy in Tigray.

The contest for control over these lucrative gold resources had heightened tensions between the factions. Getachew has accused his opposition of complicity in illegal gold mining and smuggling operations, allegedly in collaboration with senior generals from the TDF. In June 2024, he said that while gold worth roughly $300 million was supplied to the central bank in one quarter, three to four times that amount was being smuggled out of Tigray every quarter. 

In the past ten months alone, Ethiopia officially exported $2 billion worth of gold, a significant portion of which—12,210 kilograms—came from the Tigray region. Based on these figures, the gold smuggled from Tigray is estimated to average between 36,600 and 48,800 kilograms a year.

These estimates are corroborated by other well-placed sources who assess that between 30,000 and 50,000 kilograms of gold are smuggled out of Tigray annually.

Tigray’s estimated illicit gold market size is also comparable to nationwide figures. A recent study commissioned by the Embassy of India in Addis Ababa found that Ethiopia loses nearly two-thirds of its total gold production to informal and illegal channels.

In terms of market value, the smuggled gold is estimated to be worth $2 billion to $3.49 billion a year. This estimate reflects figures and market conditions comparable to those under which Ethiopia’s official gold exports were made during the same period. Notably, this figure is on par with Ethiopia’s total gold export revenue during the same period ($2 billion) and dwarfs Tigray’s entire annual regional budget, which stands at just $100 million.

Among those allegedly implicated is Brigadier General Migbey Haile, a senior military official in the region’s army accused of overstepping his military mandate and participating in gold embezzlement operations in northern Tigray. In March 2025, the Ethiopian National Defense Force publicly accused General Migbey of “smuggling Tigrayan gold through Eritrea for personal enrichment,” among other charges. Migbey has categorically denied all allegations.

Foreign Involvement, Expanding Illicit Networks

Tigrayan fighters are not the only players involved in the region’s illicit mining operations, underscoring a broader and deeply entrenched crisis. Refugees, internally displaced persons, and local youth are also actively participating in the illegal gold trade.

Moreover, industry insiders, regional officials, and Tigrayan activists say that foreign actors may have become complicit in illegal mining. After the war, the Tigray administration barred several licensed mining companies from accessing gold sites, and in a letter sent to the Ministry of Mines (MoM) two years ago, it formally requested the revocation of 27 mining licenses, including those for gold exploration and extraction.

While the official reason cited was the companies’ failure to commence operations, the reality on the ground tells a more complex story. By the time of their expulsion, Tigrayan generals and their ex-TDF combatants had already taken control of many of the sites previously held by these companies.

According to well-placed sources in the mining sector at both regional and national levels, when legal access to the mining areas was denied, some companies pivoted to informal arrangements, collaborating directly with military generals, ex-combatants, and local landowners to maintain a stake in gold extraction. 

Foreign involvement in illicit gold mining is not new in Ethiopia. In 2023, the Ethiopian Security and Intelligence Joint Task Force detained more than 90 foreign nationals, including nine companies, and their local accomplices in Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz regions for allegedly engaging in illegal mineral exploitation.

A similar pattern is unfolding in Tigray, where foreign actors have leveraged the post-conflict vacuum to further embed themselves in the region’s illegal mining networks.

According to Tigrayan officials and other sources, foreign companies, intermediaries, and money launderers are closely interfacing with local military officials, ex-combatants, and corrupt bureaucrats. Foreign nationals are involved in mining, gold smuggling, and payment facilitation, they said. 

Tigrayan officials have named Canadian, Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern nationals as key players in the illicit gold trade. The foreign actors, they say, often operate in the background, providing exploration technologies, mining equipment, and financial backing, while partnering with local generals who control access to the land and labor.

In addition, with gold prices climbing to historic highs over the past two years, so, too, has the incentive for illegal mining.

Global Mining Companies & Tigray

Canada is a global leader in the mining industry, with Canadian gold mining companies  active in the Tigray region prior to the outbreak of war.  As of 2013, over 50 percent of the world’s publicly listed exploration and mining companies were headquartered in Canada. Notably, Ethiopia’s national mining cadaster system was funded by the Canadian government.

Even with a devastating war still raging and despite a public backlash against foreign mining operations, Canadian companies were in contact with the Ethiopian government, pushing to secure licenses and rights for their projects in the region.

One such company is East Africa Metals (EAM) Inc. According to The Globe and Mail, the company stated in a 2021 letter to the Ethiopian government that it had discovered gold reserves worth an estimated $3 billion in Tigray and was “prepared to initiate its exploration and construction programs.”

EAM has repeatedly expressed its readiness to resume operations in the region. In July 2024, the company announced that its development partner had initiated the procurement process for heavy equipment needed for the construction of the Adyabo Project’s Mato Bula and Da Tambuk mines, both in Tigray.

In January 2025, East Africa Metals completed a private placement to raise funds for operations in Tigray and Tanzania, which it said reflects “confidence in the company’s African assets.”

Despite these developments, company officials state that operations in Tigray have not yet resumed.

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Our company holds mining licenses for the Da Tambuk and Mato Bula sites. However, we have been unable to access them for the past several years. While the federal government is supportive, the regional administration has not cooperated.

Teketsel Tsige - general manager of Tigray Resources Incorporated (TRI), a subsidiary of East Africa Metals (EAM).

“Our company holds mining licenses for the Da Tambuk and Mato Bula sites. However, we have been unable to access them for the past several years. While the federal government is supportive, the regional administration has not cooperated,” said Teketsel Tsige, general manager of Tigray Resources Incorporated (TRI), a subsidiary of East Africa Metals (EAM).

Satellite imagery shows that mining operations have been ongoing at the Da Tambuk and Mato Bula mines, with significant terrain changes and excavation evident between 2020 and 2024.

The company states that these operations are not done by EAM.

Addressing allegations that foreign companies are operating illegally in Tigray, Teketsel responded, “I’ve heard reports that foreigners are involved in illegal mining in the region. However, I believe they are acting as individuals, not as representatives of any company.”

“We are a legitimate business,” Teketsel said. “We carried out our exploration activities legally and invested millions. For us, there is no path but the legal one. We are waiting for the right time to resume our lawful operations.”

Another Canadian mining company pursuing gold in Tigray is Sun Peak Metals. In early 2024, Sun Peak’s stock surged to its highest level in nearly three years after the company announced its readiness to resume exploration activities on its Shire Project in Ethiopia.

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According to the company, the Shire Project comprises six exploration licenses and spans some 559 square miles (1,450 square kilometers) within the highly prospective Arabian-Nubian Shield. Moreover, in June 2024, Sun Peak announced that an initial drill program on the Shire Project in Ethiopia is complete, and results of the survey are pending.

In an emailed statement, Sun Peak stated that while all its exploration licenses are “current and in good standing,” the company has stopped operations. Yordanos added that Sun Peak has retained all its staff and remains hopeful that mining will resume once the region’s political situation stabilizes.

Reporting for this story was funded by Transparency International. A version of this story is being co-published with The Continent.

Part 2
Gold and Guns: Aftershocks of War

Kaleab Girma

Kaleab Girma

Kaleab Girma is a reporter and researcher based in Ethiopia.
Ashenafi Endale

Ashenafi Endale

Ashenafi Endale is a journalist and researcher based in Addis Ababa, where he is Editor-In-Chief of The Reporter newspaper. For more than three years, Ashenafi has been reporting on illicit mining networks with deep roots in domestic and regional conflicts in the Horn of Africa and other issues.
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More From the Series

Chapter 1: East Goes West
Chapter 2: Ghana
Chapter 3: Niger
Chapter 4: Senegal
Chapter 5: Sudan
Chapter 6: Ecuador
Chapter 7: Brazil
Chapter 8: Mexico

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Afonso, 28, Congo
Upstairs in one of the big bedrooms of the Scalabrinian Mission Afonso, a 28-year-old migrant from Congo, explained how he came from Kinshasa in 2015 by boat, escaping from the violent conflicts raging in his own country. He hired the service of smugglers and came on a cargo ship with a number of others. He paid for part of the trip by working on the ship. He was left in the coast of Santos, a city 55km away from Sao Paulo. He is now searching for a job.

“K.”, 39, Sierra Leone
At Caritas, a non-profit providing support to refugees and migrants, we met “K” (who asked not to reveal his full name), who had left Sierra Leone three months ago. His grandfather was a chief priest of a secret society for whom it is a tradition to initiate the oldest son of the family when the former elder dies. A Christian and a graduate in Information Technology, “K” refused to take part in the ritual and says he was then targeted. He fled to stay with family in the interior of the country, but was kidnapped and held captive in the forest. One night he managed to escape to the city and met a woman from a Christian organization which provided airplane tickets so he could leave immediately for Brazil.

Jorge, 25, Guinea-Bissau
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Abu, 37, Senegal
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Ibrahim, 41, Senegal
Members of the Senegalese community gather in República Square every week for a party, mounting up their own sound system, bringing drums and singing. On the night we visit around 50 people were dancing and chanting traditional Senegalese songs. Later they take a seat and discuss issues important to the community. Ibrahim, one of the group, has a talent for sewing fake Nike and Adidas logos to clothing in an improvised atelier nearby. Although he is a professional tailor and prefers to dedicate his time to his own original work, he says financial pressures meant he was forced to join the market of counterfeit designer-label clothing.

Guaianazes street, downtown Sao Paulo

On Rua Guaianazes there is a run-down mosque on the second floor of an old and degraded building, which is frequented by many African migrants. Outside, the smell of marijuana and cheap crack is inebriating. Crowds gather on the streets in front of the packed bars, while different people ask us if we want cheap marihuana. We enter one bar that has literally no chairs or tables: there is a poster of Cameroon’s most famous footballer Samuel Eto’o on the wall, and a big snooker table in the centre while all around customers gamble, argue and smoke. The bar tender tells us it is a Nigerian bar, but that it is frequented by Africans of all nationalities. Among the offers of cheap marijuana, crack and cocaine, laughs, music and loud chat, you can barely hear to the imam's call. Rua Guaianazes is considered to be the heart of Cracolandia, a territory controlled by organized crime for more than a decade and now reportedly home to some African-led drug trafficking gangs.

Santa Efigenia neighbourhood
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“H”, 42, Angola
“H” is an Angolan woman now living in a house rented from the Baptist church. The area outside the house is a “boca de fumo” - an open drug dealing spot managed by armed guards. “H’s” house is annexed to the church building itself, and is very rustic and simple. She arrived a year ago with two of her children, and also pregnant. She says that after the family of the Angolan president took over the market of smuggled goods in her country, her small import business started to crumble. Her husband and two more daughters are still there. She is currently unemployed, but happy that her young son is studying, although often he comes home complaining about racism at school. “H” does not want him to play with the neighbourhood children, she is afraid he will be drawn to narco-trafficking if he gets in with the wrong crowd. In the long run, she wants to go back to Angola, but only under “a different political situation.”

Lalingé restaurant, Sao Paulo
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Scalabrinian Mission, Canindé neighbourhood
The Scalabrinian Mission in the neighborhood of Canindé provides philanthropic aid to migrants. Soror Eva Souza, the director, says they have helped people from Africa (Angola, Congo, Guinea, Togo, Nigeria, South Africa, Mali, British Guyana, Somalia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Uganda), North Africa and the Middle East (Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt), Asia (Cambodia, South Korea, the Philippines, Bangladesh), Europe (The Netherlands, Russia, France) and Latin America and the Caribbean (Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Haiti, Cuba). The Mission provides housing, food, clothing, medication and facilities for migrants. They only receive a small amount of financial support from local government, but work to help migrants find a job so they can live independently. Souza says many of those who arrive at the house are ill: some are seriously injured, others sick from the journey or the conditions they were living in before arriving in Sao Paulo. Since 2015, she says she has seen  human trafficking and slavery victims, drug mules, political refugees, and people who have lost their families en route. When we visit 40-year-old Mohamed Ali, from Morocco, was trying to find a job with the support of the Mission.

Clement Kamano, 24, Guinea-Conakry
Kamano was studying Social Sciences at Université Général Lansana Conté when he took part in the protests of September 28th, 2009, which ended up in a massacre with more than 150 people killed. Afterwards, he was repeatedly harassed because of his involvement in social movements. Fearing he might be killed, his father bought him a ticket to Brazil. Now he is a political refugee, who is almost fluent in Portuguese, and who enjoys talking about the sociologist-philosophers Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, even Leibniz and Nietzsche. He is currently applying to join a federal university in Sao Paulo.

What’s “cereza” in Arabic?
In a bright classroom in the centre of Quito, a group of students sit around a whiteboard. “Yo veo la televisión con mis amigos en la tarde,” they repeat after the teacher, “I watch television with my friends in the afternoon.” “Yo tomo el bus par ir al trabajo,” “I take the bus to go to work.”

Around the table are two Syrians who fled the war, one Cameroonian who says he wanted to escape the Anglo-French conflict in his homeland, two Afghans, one a former top-ranking police officer, an Egyptian and a Sri Lankan who wanted to go anywhere where he could make enough money to help his family. Migrants who arrive in Ecuador from Africa, Asia and the Middle East face a steep learning curve: it might be relatively easy to enter the country, thanks to Ecuador’s liberal open-border policy, but finding work here and learning Spanish can be difficult. Today their teacher is translating between Arabic, Spanish and English. “Market”? asks one. “Souk” replies another member of the group, while a fellow student does a quick translation into Pashtu.

Experts say some of those who come through language centres like these are planning on continuing their journey north, others on staying in Ecuador.

A little piece of Nigeria, in Quito
As the night closes in, Grace, a 25-year-old law graduate from Cameroon, dashes between a barbeque out on the street and the kitchen in the small Nigerian restaurant where she is working the night shift, as a television showing an African football league plays in the background. She wears a dark top, and her hair pulled back, as she fans the tilapia grilling on the coals. When she was denied a Canadian visa, despite having a scholarship, she decided she still wanted to leave Cameroon, where she complains of a lack of jobs and opportunities for the country’s English-speaking minority. With three friends, she bought a ticket heading west for Ecuador where she heard she could enter with her invitation to study at a language school. She soon converted to a missionary visa, and now works here and sings in the choir at a church up the hill, teaching Sunday school at the weekends. Like many of her customers, she also wants to travel north to the US or Canada, but only with the correct papers. “If you go without papers and through the jungle, you might be lost. Then my family is lost as well.”

The Afghan police officer
Asadullah, a former police officer, spent 31 years training new recruits and fighting terrorist groups in his country. Among the documents he smuggled out with him is a photograph of him with Robert Gates, the former US Secretary of Defence, paperwork from a training programme at the National Defence University in Washington DC, and training certificate from the George C Marshall centre in Europe, signed by the German defence minister.

His career had been high-profile and illustrious, but while that brought recognition from the Americans and their allies, it also brought him the unwelcome attention of the Taliban and other extremist groups.

For three years before he fled, he says terrorists were calling him saying he needed to end his work with the police. “Come and work with us,” they’d coax. When he refused, someone tried to throw acid on his child at school – that was when he decided to leave.

Today the family are renting a spacious flat in central Quito, with a big beige sofa and swept wood floors. A big TV is mounted on the wall behind him, and one of his children brings in sweet tea and fruits. His wife and six of his children are with him, awaiting a decision from the migration authorities on their asylum case. For the sake of his children – who all speak English – Asadullah wants to go to the US.

“I want to go to America, but it’s a process: it will take a lot of time,” he says. “We have been waiting to get an answer. I only came here because the bad people wanted to kill us. I’m just here so I’m safe.” He considered going to Europe, but considered the route there more dangerous. “Many Afghan people wanted to go to Europe, to Turkey, but many people died in the sea.”

The Artist
Mughni Sief’s paintings once made him a well-known artist in his native Syria: he taught fine art in a top university, and was invited to Lebanon to show his work. But since the war, and his decision to flee, his paintings have taken on a darker tone. One , “Even The Sea Had A Share Of Our Lives, It Was Tough” touches on the horrors so many Syrians have seen as they try to flee to safety.

“This painting is about Syrians crossing the sea to go to Europe from Turkey. I put this fish head and cut the head off to show the culture of ISIS. This here is the boat people,” he explains in his spartan apartment in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. “Syria was empty of people, and there are so many people dying in the sea.”

From the windows of his bedroom-come-studio, you can see the mountains, washing hanging in the sunshine on a neighbours balcony, beige tiles. Behind him the bed sheets – which came with the house – are adorned with images of teddy bears and the phrase “happy day.”

In the corner is a small, rolling suitcase in which he brought his wood carving tools, crayons, and charcoals from Syria: everything from his old life that he dared bring without alerting attention that he was leaving the country. In a small backpack he bought a Frederick Nietshce paperback, a birthday present from a friend, and a book he bought in Syria: “Learn Spanish in 5 days”. He didn’t bring any photos, in case his bag was searched.

Frustrated by restrictions he faced as a Syrian in Lebanon, he started to research other places where he might make a new start. He read that Ecuador was “one of the few countries that don't ask for a visa from Syrians. I had problems leaving Lebanon, and in El Dorado in Colombia but at Quito I came in no problem. The only question was: why are you coming to Ecuador, do you have money? I said nothing about asking for asylum so they just gave me a tourist visa.”

Soon after he made his asylum application, and today, he paints while he waits for a decision. “Before the war I was focused just on humans, on women, but when the war started that changed, and I began focusing on the miserable life that we live in Syria,” he says as he arranges three paintings on the bed. In one, he explains, is a woman who can’ face something in her life, so prefers to stop speaking.

Tricked
Although many of the migrants that make their way to Ecuador are able to travel more independently than those making the journey across the Mediterranean, examples abound of exploitation of some who arrive here. Mohammad, for example. He’s  a 24-year-old from Sri Lanka who first tried his luck in Malaysia, but was cheated by a travel fixer who took his money while promising him a work visa that never materialized. When he was arrested for working without the proper documents, a friend had to come and pay the police to get him out. Travelling west, to Ecuador, after religious violence broke out in his hometown, he says he paid someone he knows to help sort out his travel, unsure of how much he took as a cut. When he flew in, alongside a Sri Lankan family, the agent arranged for him to be picked up by an unknown woman who charged each of them again to take them to a hostel. He is now renting a room from a man he met at the mosque. Every day continues to be a struggle, he said.

“At home, I saw so many troubles each day. I decided to come here thinking maybe things will be good. But I did one week working in a restaurant, they treated me like a slave. For three months I was searching for work. They are good people here but I have no opportunities here. Seven months I have nothing, I’m wasting my time.”