Will Ethiopia and Eritrea Go To War?

Ethiopia and Eritrea are two countries that have been fighting almost non-stop for sixty years, but after a historic peace process in 2018 that finally ended the border conflict, the two countries are once again bracing for war... but why? Abhinav Nambeesan, from our Research & Publications Division, examines the recent conflict and the reasons for it in this commentary.

Ethiopia and Eritrea since 2000

In December 2000, the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed the Algiers Agreement, which formally ended the war between the two nations that had seen a significant flare-up in 1998. The agreement established a commission to resolve the disagreement the two countries had regarding the border. However, when the commission announced its decision on where the border lay in 2002¹, it did not end the conflict. While Eritrea accepted the commission’s decision and wanted to fence the border, Ethiopia refused any physical demarcation of the border, indicating that it did not accept the border as it was decided by the commission.

Eritrea, which is a heavily militaristic and authoritarian state², has maintained a very large army in order to defend against any possible Ethiopian invasion, and the paranoia of the government has resulted in the general mobilisation of the majority of the population. Ethiopia, even after Eritrean independence, continued to use Eritrean ports, as the country does not have a coastline, but significant tensions between the two countries have resulted in Ethiopia pivoting towards using the port in Djibouti. As Ethiopia does not have a port for itself, it has become heavily reliant on Djibouti³, and has almost entirely stopped using Eritrean ports.

After the fall of the Derg, Ethiopia was led by a coalition of several political parties, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which was an ethnic nationalist party primarily based in the region of Tigray, and because of the historic ties between the Tigrayan people and the Tigrinya people of Eritrea, the ELF and TPLF had been close allies. During the TPLF rule of Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018, relations still did not improve and were very strained due to a dispute over the town of Badme⁴, which had been given to Eritrea by the boundary commission. Ethiopia refused to accept the decision of the commission largely because of the Badme dispute, and skirmishes continued between the two countries.

A poster depicts Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (left) and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in Asmara, Eritrea, on September 7, 2018. Tensions between the two countries have been rising again. (Malin Fezehai/The New York Times)

In 2018, a historic summit was held⁵ between President Afwerki of Eritrea and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, with hopes of finally resolving the decades-long border conflict. This summit resulted in the border conflict finally coming to an end, as both sides fully accepted the decision of the boundary commission, opened the border for trade, and ended all hostilities between the two countries. This was very significant, but while formal conflict had ended, and the boundary was finally settled, tensions did not end. Eritrea was still paranoid about an attack by Ethiopia and continued its full mobilization, and relations between the TPLF and Eritrea remained very cold.

In 2019, when Abiy Ahmed formed the new “Prosperity Party” by combining most of the ethnic and regional-based political parties, the TPLF refused to join, as they believed that Ahmed would take the path of infringing on the autonomy of TIgray. The refusal of the TPLF to join the party led to it being thrown out of government, and the tensions between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government, including the delaying of the 2020 parliamentary elections to an indefinite date, exploded into an all-out civil war in November 2020⁶. This was an extremely brutal war, as it caused the food system in Tigray to completely collapse, resulting in more than two million refugees that fled both to other regions in Ethiopia and to Eritrea and chronic food insecurity in the region.

Eritrea was heavily involved in the Tigray War, supporting the Ethiopian government against the TPLF, and also deployed military forces to fight against the TPLF, who took control of many areas within Tigray and were alleged to have committed several war crimes. The war came to an end in November 2022, with the Ethiopian government having taken control of Tigray, but Eritrea had not withdrawn all of its troops. Despite Eritrea having intervened against the TPLF, relations between the Ethiopian government and Eritrea continued to be quite hostile. Ethiopia accused Eritrea of committing several war crimes, which did not endear the Eritreans to the government, but what alarmed Eritrea the most was a speech made by Abiy Ahmed in October 2023⁷. In this speech, the Prime Minister said that the leaders of Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea would have to engage in discussions regarding Ethiopian access to the Red Sea “for the lasting peace,” and said that if there was no fairness and justice, they were ready to fight.

Eritrea was obviously very alarmed at these remarks, but what alarmed it even more was that Ethiopia had begun to build up troops on the Eritrean border, with some estimates putting the number of troops to be as high as 40,000⁸. In response, the Eritreans have also begun to build up their own forces, and it seems like the Ethiopians might be using the world’s distraction from the region to take Eritrea back by force- or at least part of it.

Why does Ethiopia want to take Eritrea?

Ethiopia is a country that has a very large population of around 125 million people, making it the second-most populated country in Africa. Regionally too, it has far more people than any of its neighbours and has historically used this fact to extend its influence across East Africa. Even more importantly, the population of the country is also growing very quickly, and it is predicted that by 2050, the population of the country will approach 170 million people⁹. Ethiopia also is blessed geographically- the Blue Nile, the river which contributes the majority of the water of the Nile River as a whole, begins in Ethiopia, and so provides the country not just with a reliable source of drinking water, but also an enormous hydroelectric potential. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is being constructed in order to tap this hydroelectric potential and take advantage of the geography of the country, which has raised tensions with Egypt¹º.

However, Ethiopia has one major geographical disadvantage, which the Ethiopian government views as an existential threat and something that cannot continue if the country is to achieve its potential- Ethiopia does not have a coastline. The major reason why Ethiopia fought for decades to keep control over Eritrea was that it would lose its coastline on the Red Sea and thus would be forced to depend on other countries for its trade. And, when Eritrea managed to win its independence, Ethiopia was faced with the reality of being landlocked. It is by far the largest country by population that is landlocked, and the government is very much aware of how much it has become dependent on other countries. In 2023, over 95% of Ethiopia’s foreign trade of goods went through the port of Doraleh in Djibouti¹¹, and while Ethiopia has also been looking to expand its trade through the unrecognized state of Somaliland, it does not come close to how much Ethiopia is reliant on Doraleh. However, Djibouti, knowing how much Ethiopia is reliant on it, has been charging Ethiopia very high fees to trade through Doraleh, which is a heavy financial burden on the Ethiopians. All this has made the Ethiopian government very eager to find an alternative, and in the eyes of Abiy Ahmed, the best way for Ethiopia to be independent in its foreign trade is to have a port of its own- which is why he has been eyeing up Eritrea, and specifically the port of Assab.

For the Ethiopian government, an annexation of Eritrea would mean that it would be getting a vital connection to the Red Sea through the ports of Assab and Massawa, which would mean that not only would it now be able to expand its trade on its own, but would also stop having to pay the high fees Djibouti charges it. Eritrea, which has a population that is almost forty times smaller than Ethiopia, is terrified of this prospect, and despite having mobilized almost its entire adult population, Eritrea knows that it cannot fend off the Ethiopians- and this is known to Ethiopia as well. Ethiopia has a proud history of dominating the Red Sea, which it has done for centuries, and Ethiopian nationalists believe that their access to the sea was stolen by European colonists and that the denial of their rightful access must be righted.

Further, Ethiopia is very frustrated by Eritrea’s continued occupation of some parts of Tigray, as the Eritreans never recognized the peace deal signed in 2022¹², and have continued to launch operations in the region. Ethiopia, which continues to fight against ethnic-based groups in its country, wants Eritrea to fully withdraw from Tigray. Ethiopia is currently fighting against militias from the Amhara group- the Fano- and a militia from the Oromia region called the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). There is a belief in Addis Ababa that Eritrea might be supporting the Fano and OLA to destabilize Ethiopia even more and derail the project of ending the ethnic-based politics of the country that Abiy Ahmed is seeking to achieve. The Ethiopian government might believe that the cost of launching a war against Eritrea to take that coastline might be worth it against the continued cost of trading through Djibouti and having no coastline of its own. Also, in addition to hoping that the world remains distracted by Ukraine and the Middle East, the Ethiopians might also believe that the world would not care to intervene to protect Eritrea- which is considered to be one of the world’s most totalitarian regimes. In 2023, Eritrea ranked 174th in Reporters Without Borders’ global press index¹³, which was even lower than countries like Russia, Yemen, and Belarus.

President Isaias Afwerki has transformed Eritrean society into what is essentially an army of slaves, and his regime is internationally isolated and despised. So, Ethiopia might believe that the stigma of supporting a regime that is sometimes called “Africa’s North Korea” would turn away major countries from opposing an invasion by Ethiopia. However, since Ethiopia is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for monetary aid, it might also result in those negotiations permanently stalling- however, once again, Ethiopia might believe that it might be worth it if they manage to get their hands on the ports on the Red Sea.

Will Ethiopia actually invade Eritrea?

The new Ethiopian government, led by Abiy Ahmed, has viewed the independence of Eritrea as a very big mistake made by the TPLF, and Ethiopia must fix this mistake before its opportunity to capitalize on its potential slips from its grasp. Ethiopia is well aware that access to the sea would provide a significant benefit to the economy of the country¹⁴, and Ahmed’s use of the term “prison” to describe the landlocked country has obviously indicated that he wants to “break out” of it. If Ethiopia actually believes that Eritrea is supporting the Fano and OLA, then the government would want to remove this support in order to push the ongoing internal conflict towards an end, and Ahmed might feel that full annexation of Eritrea is the best route. Eritrea is a very weak country, with the key port of Assab only connected to the capital by one road, which Ethiopia could very easily capture and use to block the Eritrean forces from defending their key port.

In February 2024, Eritrean soldiers were accused of abducting farmers¹⁵ from Tigray in late 2023 and early 2024, which contributed to tensions heating up even more, and was seen by some as Ethiopia building up the case for an invasion. It seems like an invasion is growing ever more likely- Eritrea is a close ally of Russia, and so the US would probably be unlikely to intervene on their side, especially because Ethiopia could act as a major US ally against the Houthis in Yemen if the US chose it. Meanwhile, Ethiopia has also been moving towards the unrecognized territory of Somaliland, with which it signed a major trade deal to use its coastline for trade¹⁶. Somalia has called this an attempt for Ethiopia to annex Somaliland, which has made many believe that a war between Ethiopia and Somalia might also break out soon. While some say that Ethiopia doing this would indicate that it is not going to invade Eritrea, as it would be unable to fight against Eritrea and Somalia at the same time, Somalia does not really possess the capability to fight a full-scale war against Ethiopia, especially because the last time it did so, it led to the destabilization of the government and later the complete collapse of the country¹⁷ that has made Somalia a ‘failed state.’ Somalia, it is believed, is not capable of fighting another war, so Ethiopia might be aiming to keep Somaliland as a regional ally and to appease the Somalis living in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have a long history of hostility and conflict, and as Ethiopia seems like it continues to see the Eritrean regime as a threat to its security, East Africa seems poised to witness another all-out war in the coming months.

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