Heightened Tensions Between Ethiopia and Eritrea
On February 7, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos issued a letter accusing Eritrea of backing militants in the northern Tigray region, demanding that Eritrea “withdraw its troops from Ethiopian territory and cease all forms of collaboration with rebel groups.” Asmara responded two days later, claiming that the allegations were fake, and further alleging that Ethiopia, a landlocked country, was aiming to seize Eritrea’s Assab port through military force.
In late January, drone strikes launched by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in Tigray killed one person and injured another, heightening fears of a civil war over contested territory that both Amhara and Tigrayan forces claim. Addis Ababa, under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, continues to accuse the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Tigrayan nationalist paramilitary group, of affiliating with the Eritrean government in preparation for war against Ethiopia. The TPLF has been dealing with its own internal fractures, with the leader of the organization fleeing Mekele, the regional capital, just last year, leaving the party in disarray ever since.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have their own recent, fragile history. From 1998-2000, a border war was fought, resulting in over 100,000 deaths. A conclusive peace deal was never reached after the war, with relations only improving after Prime Minister Ahmed traveled to Asmara in 2018, winning him a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts the following year. Later, Ethiopia and Eritrea became allies during Ethiopia’s ruthless civil war from 2020 to 2022 against northern Tigrayan forces led by the TPLF, with casualty estimates ranging from 600,000 to 800,000 deaths. During the war, Tigrayan infrastructure was systematically decimated, starvation was inflicted upon the northern ethnic population, and a large-scale campaign of sexual abuse was waged on the region’s women and children.
Following the 2022 Pretoria Agreement that ended the war, the Tigray region embarked on a delicate recovery process. Yet, the TPLF has faced internal divisions due to corruption and a lack of commitment to reach a resolution, instead hoping to continue the conflict through other means. This has left the Tigrayan population incredibly vulnerable. Following the war, the TPLF fractured into two camps: anti-government hardliners and more moderate leaders. While the ENDF has thrown its support behind the moderates, the hardline faction has increasingly aligned itself with Eritrea.
In 2022, Amharan militias, allied with the Ethiopian central government and composed of the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, were ordered to retreat from Tigray, feeling betrayed by the Ethiopian national army, as their contributions to the war effort were dismissed through the Pretoria Agreement. Eritrean soldiers were also excluded from the treaty, reigniting the decades-old feud between Eritrea and Ethiopia. With old border grievances resurfacing, peace deals fraying, and rival factions courting external backing, recent skirmishes between Ethiopia and Eritrea risk triggering a wider war that could once again destabilize the entire Horn of Africa.