Renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia is threatening to reopen one of the Horn of Africa’s most destructive conflicts, while the deterioration in relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea raises the possibility that a domestic confrontation could acquire a wider regional dimension.
Fighting has intensified in and around Ethiopia’s Tigray region since September, involving federal forces and an alliance of armed groups that includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The escalation follows years of unresolved political, territorial and security disputes after the 2020–2022 Tigray war, which ended with the Pretoria Agreement in November 2022.
The African Union, which helped broker that agreement, has described the Pretoria accord as the cornerstone of sustainable peace in Ethiopia. On 23 September, the African Union Commission warned that renewed hostilities, the seizure of airports and the formation of new political and military alliances risked reversing the progress made since the previous war. The United Nations has similarly called for restraint, civilian protection and the avoidance of actions that could lead to a broader conflict.
The immediate crisis is therefore not simply a return to the previous war. The political geography of the Horn has changed significantly since 2022, with Ethiopia’s relationship with Eritrea deteriorating sharply, Sudan remaining engulfed in war and competition over the Red Sea becoming increasingly intertwined with the security calculations of countries across north-east Africa.
Ethiopia and Eritrea are at the centre of this shift. During the 2020–2022 Tigray war, Eritrean forces fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal government against the TPLF. That relationship has since broken down.
Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of supporting the current opposition alliance, while Eritrea has rejected the allegations. The dispute escalated dramatically this week when Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats and announced the closure of its embassy in Asmara. Eritrea subsequently announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with Ethiopia.
The diplomatic rupture does not by itself establish that Eritrea is directing or materially supporting the Tigrayan forces. But it illustrates the depth of the deterioration between two states whose relationship has repeatedly shifted from confrontation to cooperation and back again.
The underlying disputes are longstanding. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a devastating border war between 1998 and 2000, while Eritrea’s independence in 1993 left Ethiopia, one of Africa’s largest landlocked economies, without direct access to the Red Sea.
More recently, Ethiopian efforts to secure reliable maritime access have become an important source of regional tension. Ethiopia’s pursuit of port access, including through arrangements involving Somaliland, has been closely watched by Eritrea and Somalia, while questions surrounding the status of Somaliland have acquired a wider geopolitical significance.
These issues cannot, however, be reduced solely to competition between governments. For Ethiopia, maritime access has economic and strategic implications for a large landlocked population and economy. For Eritrea, Somalia and Somaliland, questions of sovereignty, territory and control over coastal infrastructure are directly connected to national security and political legitimacy.
The war in neighbouring Sudan adds another layer to the crisis.
Sudan’s conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has become one of the region’s most consequential wars, with both sides accused of receiving external political, financial or military support. Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have all developed interests in Sudan, although their relationships with the competing Sudanese actors are not always fixed or straightforward.
Claims concerning external involvement remain contested. The United Arab Emirates has rejected allegations that it supports the RSF, while Ethiopia has denied accusations that it is backing the paramilitary force or facilitating its military activities. Egypt and other regional governments have likewise rejected allegations of direct interference in Ethiopia’s renewed conflict.
What is increasingly clear, however, is that the conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan exist within overlapping political and economic networks. Borders in the Horn frequently divide communities with historical, commercial and familial ties, while armed groups and political movements have sometimes operated across those borders.
Reuters has reported that some Tigrayan forces have fought alongside Sudanese military forces and that meetings in Sudan were associated with the formation of the new Ethiopian opposition alliance. Such reporting points to the extent to which political and military networks can cross national boundaries, although it does not mean that governments involved in the wider regional system necessarily exercise direct control over those actors.
The situation is further complicated by the changing balance of influence around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The United Arab Emirates has developed extensive commercial, diplomatic and security relationships across the Horn, including significant involvement in port and logistics infrastructure. Saudi Arabia has also increased its engagement with the region. Their interests overlap in some areas but diverge in others, particularly over Yemen, maritime security and the political direction of regional partners.
The rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi should therefore be understood as one component of a broader regional system rather than as the sole explanation for conflict in the Horn. African governments and political actors retain their own interests and agency, often engaging different external partners according to domestic priorities.
This is particularly evident in Somalia and Somaliland, where questions of sovereignty, federal authority, coastal access and international recognition have become intertwined with wider competition over maritime infrastructure.
The Red Sea itself has become increasingly important to the strategic calculations of governments on both sides of the waterway. Conflict in Yemen, attacks involving the Houthi movement and wider instability around the Bab el-Mandeb have demonstrated the vulnerability of one of the world’s most important maritime corridors.
For countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan, these developments are not distant geopolitical concerns. They affect trade, port access, food security, investment, migration and national security.
Yet the risk of a regional war should not be treated as inevitable.
The Horn has experienced periods in which apparently separate conflicts became interconnected, but it has also demonstrated the capacity of African states and institutions to negotiate political settlements. The Pretoria Agreement itself was the product of African-led mediation, with the African Union playing a central role.
The AU has again called for restraint, dialogue and the preservation of diplomatic channels between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt. Its intervention is significant because the immediate challenge is not simply military containment. It is preventing individual disputes over borders, political authority, water, ports and regional alliances from becoming mutually reinforcing.
The humanitarian consequences are already visible.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it evacuated 161 people from conflict-affected Mekelle to Semera in Afar on 28 September, including federal police personnel and their families, Ethiopian Airlines staff, civil aviation personnel, African Union monitors and Ethiopian Red Cross Society members.
The United Nations has warned that civilians displaced during the previous conflict face renewed protection risks, while new displacement is emerging. Humanitarian operations have also been disrupted, including through the seizure of aid vehicles and other restrictions affecting humanitarian personnel.
For communities in Tigray and neighbouring regions, the immediate concern is therefore less about the geopolitical competition surrounding the Horn and more about whether another cycle of displacement, disruption and destruction can be avoided.
The danger for the wider region lies in the interaction between these local realities and interstate rivalries. A conflict that begins around political authority in Tigray could become more difficult to contain if neighbouring governments conclude that their own security interests require intervention.
That is why the present crisis matters beyond Ethiopia. It sits at the intersection of unresolved questions over Ethiopia’s internal political order, its relationship with Eritrea, the war in Sudan, the future of Somalia and Somaliland, access to the Red Sea and competing economic and security partnerships across the Horn.
The region’s history suggests that such disputes rarely follow a single trajectory. Local political grievances can intersect with interstate interests, while external partnerships can provide African governments and political movements with additional options without necessarily determining their decisions.
The immediate priority is therefore to prevent those relationships from hardening into military blocs.
For Ethiopia and Eritrea, restoring diplomatic communication is particularly important. For the Tigray conflict, the Pretoria framework remains an established basis for dialogue. For the wider Horn, the challenge is to ensure that competition over ports, trade routes, resources and security partnerships does not turn African states into theatres for conflicts whose origins lie partly outside their borders.
The renewed fighting in Tigray has not yet produced a region-wide war. But the combination of military escalation, diplomatic rupture and interconnected conflicts means the costs of miscalculation are considerably higher than they were several years ago.
The trajectory will depend not only on the military balance inside Ethiopia, but also on whether regional governments choose confrontation or negotiation, and whether African institutions can keep the disputes within diplomatic rather than military channels.
