Relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea collapsed on Thursday, October 1, when Eritrea announced it was severing all diplomatic ties with its larger neighbour. The move came hours after Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled ten Eritrean diplomats, accusing Eritrea of backing rebels in the country’s north. The rupture marks a dramatic reversal from the 2018 rapprochement that earned Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed international acclaim.
Key takeaways
- Eritrea said Ethiopia left it “no option but to reciprocate in kind.”
- Fighting in Tigray, Amhara and Afar is the most severe since the 2020–2022 civil war.
- Egypt and Ethiopia also expelled each other’s diplomats in the same week.
How relations unravelled
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of supporting a rebel alliance led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Eritrea, led by President Isaias Afwerki, says Ethiopia is backing armed groups opposed to its own government. Both sides reject the other’s claims. Tensions had already been rising over Abiy’s repeated insistence that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to access the Red Sea — rhetoric that officials in Asmara treat as a threat to Eritrea’s territory.
The fighting on the ground
Federal forces and allied groups have reportedly made significant gains in Tigray, retaking several towns and closing in on the regional capital, Mekelle. In Afar, a pro-government group said it had recaptured the town of Erebti with Ethiopian air support. Residents have fled toward Amhara and Afar amid fears that fighting could reach urban centres such as Adwa, Axum and Shire. On the same day ties were cut, an explosion was reported near Ethiopia’s Defence Ministry in Addis Ababa, which a diplomatic source said was most likely caused by small drones.
The danger now is that a conflict fought inside Ethiopia’s borders draws in neighbours with their own grievances — and the Horn of Africa has too many of those.
A wider regional web
- Egypt: Locked in a long dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile; Addis Ababa accuses Cairo of supporting Tigrayan rebels.
- Sudan: Its military-backed government accuses Ethiopia of supporting rebels in Sudan’s own civil war, which Ethiopia denies.
- Eritrea: Rebels reportedly retain a supply link along the Eritrean border.
History repeating?
Ethiopia annexed Eritrea in 1962; Eritrea won independence in 1993 and the two fought a bloody border war from 1998 to 2000. Abiy’s peace deal in 2018 ended two decades of hostility, and Eritrea backed the federal government during the 2020–2022 war in Tigray, which killed hundreds of thousands. That alliance has now fully broken down.
What to watch
Analysts are watching for any direct clash along the border, the humanitarian situation in Tigray as access tightens, and whether the African Union or Gulf states can open channels for de-escalation. More in our World News section.