Have Eritrean troops suffered “heavy losses” in Tigray, as an Al Arabiya post says an Ethiopian militia claims?

What was claimed

On 13 October, Al Arabiya English posted on X: “Eritrean troops have suffered ‘heavy losses’ and are retreating toward their border, a spokesperson for an Ethiopian pro-government militia tells AFP.” The attached graphic reads “Eritrea suffers ‘heavy losses’: Ethiopia militia”, set over a photo of a burnt-out vehicle on a hillside A L. The post does not link to the article behind it.

Al Arabiya posted the same text on Facebook, as a link to an AFP report on its website H B. The web article carries a different picture: an AFP file photo of Ethiopian federal police patrolling a street in Mekelle on 9 October B. The burnt-out vehicle appears only in the graphic made for X.

Who made the claim

The source is Solomon Hailemariam, spokesperson for the Tigray Peace Force. He told AFP: “The Eritrean army crossed into Ethiopia and violated its sovereignty, but it has suffered heavy losses and retreated towards the border” C.

The Tigray Peace Force is not a neutral observer. It is a militia allied with the Ethiopian government and fighting alongside the federal army in Tigray D. Ethiopia’s government accuses Eritrea of invading; a militia on its side is reporting that Eritrea has been beaten back.

Its commanders have been quoted before. On 8 October, the Associated Press quoted a Tigray Peace Force commander saying Eritrean troops had entered two towns, and said it could not verify his account D. We reviewed how that claim was reported in our fact check of the AP headline.

What AFP said, and what the post left out

AFP reported the claim with two caveats. It said it “was unable to independently verify this information”. And it reported that Eritrea’s information minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, called the militia “not trustworthy” C. Both caveats appear in the web article B. The same article also states, in its own voice and without a source, that Eritrean forces “were deployed in Ethiopian territory to support the rebels” and “were also forced into an apparent retreat” B.

Neither caveat appears in Al Arabiya’s posts on X or Facebook, or in the graphic A H. A reader scrolling past sees “Eritrea suffers ‘heavy losses’” in large type, over a photo of wreckage, with the source named only as “Ethiopia militia”.

Where the photo comes from

The photo has no caption. Al Arabiya does not say where or when it was taken, or whose vehicle it was A. Placed under “Eritrea suffers ‘heavy losses’”, it reads as a picture of those losses.

It is not. The same scene appears in a Reuters picture dated 11 October 2026, two days before the militia’s claim. Reuters captions it: “Aftermath of a drone strike during fighting between the ENDF and TPLF forces in Adi Mesno” J. The ENDF is Ethiopia’s army; the TPLF is the Tigrayan party whose forces it has been fighting since September. The caption does not mention Eritrea.

The match is exact: the overturned cab, the orange machinery behind it, the ridge line, the cloud and a parked car at the edge of the frame. Al Arabiya’s version is cropped more tightly around the vehicle K.

So the only image in the post shows the aftermath of fighting between Ethiopian forces, used to illustrate a claim about Eritrean losses. A viewer has no way to know that the wreckage is not Eritrean. Al Arabiya’s own web article did not use it B.

What the evidence shows

We looked for anything that would let a reader check the claim of heavy losses: a number of dead or wounded, names, units, places, photographs or video, or confirmation from a third party such as a conflict monitor or humanitarian organisation.

We found none. The spokesperson gave no figures and named no battle or location C. The Ethiopian government has released no casualty figures. We found no report from Reuters, the Associated Press or the BBC of Eritrean casualties. The conflict monitor ACLED recorded Eritrean forces withdrawing from two places on 12 October, the day before the militia’s claim, but reported no Eritrean casualties and nothing resembling heavy losses I.

This is the second such claim. On 4 October, Ethiopian official Abraham Belay said “many Eritrean soldiers have been killed and captured”. Nine days later, no evidence for that claim has been published either.

The second half of the post, that Eritrean troops are “retreating toward their border”, is not new. On 8 October, witnesses told AFP that troops they identified as Eritrean appeared to be leaving Adigrat after drone strikes E. By 10 October, Ethiopian government forces and allied militia were in the town F. On 12 October, ACLED recorded Eritrean forces withdrawing via Zalambessa and from Sheraro, without naming its sources I. Eritrea’s information minister has denied that Eritrean forces were in Adigrat at all G. The new element in the 13 October claim is the heavy losses, and that is the part with nothing behind it.

Our verdict

Misleading. Al Arabiya attributed the claim to a militia spokesperson, which is accurate. But it paired that unverified claim with a real photo of wreckage from fighting between the Ethiopian army and the TPLF, uncaptioned and under the words “Eritrea suffers ‘heavy losses’”. A viewer is led to believe the photo shows destroyed Eritrean equipment. It does not. It also left out AFP’s statement that it could not verify the claim, and Eritrea’s rejection of it. The claim of heavy losses itself is unsupported: no figures, names, places or images have been produced. If evidence is published, we will review this fact check.