Ethiopia and Eritrea Cut Diplomatic Ties as the War Widens
Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and ordered ten Eritrean diplomats out within 48 hours, accusing them of activities threatening national security. Eritrea pre-empted the deadline by severing relations outright, calling the decision “astounding”. Addis Ababa also expelled an Egyptian diplomat and Cairo reciprocated. It followed a second night of explosions in the capital. More than fifty people have been killed since fighting resumed last week.
This is the formal end of the rapprochement that won Abiy Ahmed a Nobel Peace Prize — the Asmara embassy he has just closed is the one that reopened as its centrepiece, and the two armies fought side by side against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in 2020 to 2022. Eritrea’s foreign ministry framed it as reciprocation: it had “no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails”, adding that “in reality, it is Ethiopia which has been pursuing an agenda of incessant hostility”. The quarrel is principally about the sea. Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrean independence in 1993, and Asmara reads Mr Abiy’s insistence on sovereign access as a claim on its ports. Two cautions worth keeping: claims that Eritrean soldiers have crossed into Afar come from Ethiopian officials and a pro-government militia and are not independently verified, and federal forces are advancing towards Mekelle rather than attacking it. The African Union has urged all three countries to show restraint. Watch whether the Egyptian clock produces a second rupture.