Issue No. 299

War has been averted in Tigray-- for now. In early February, tens of thousands of Ethiopian federal soldiers and heavy artillery streamed northwards, readying themselves on the edges of the northernmost region for seemingly imminent conflict.

Six general elections in Ethiopia have been held since the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) implemented its ethnic-federal system in 1995. Each has delivered victory to the incumbent government of the day — including, most recently, the deeply discredited 2021 polls held in the shadow of the Tigray war. Once again, with Ethiopia's 7th elections — scheduled for 1 June 2026 — fast approaching, few anticipate anything other than a coronation in a country mired in raging insurgencies, state contraction, and the threat of broader inter-state conflict.

Almost exactly 130 years ago, a vast Ethiopian army led by Emperor Menelik II outmanoeuvred and overran the invading Italian army at Adwa in Tigray, bringing the first Italo-Ethiopian war to a decisive close. By midday on 1 March 1896, thousands of Italian soldiers and Eritrean 'askaris' had been killed, sparing Ethiopia from the carving up of the African continent by European colonisers.

The first known reference to the Tekezé River is an inscription that describes the Axumite King Ezana boasting of a triumph on its banks near the "ford of Kemalke" in the 4th century AD. Emerging in the Ethiopian highlands near Mount Qachen in the Amhara region, the major rivers' tributaries flow north and west, forming part of the westernmost border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

With Israeli President Isaac Herzog expected in Addis Ababa today, the steady drumbeat of war to the north continues apace. Preparations for renewed conflict are stacking up, hand over fist. Having dangled Western Tigray before both Amhara and Tigray since the end of the Tigray war in 2022, this week the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) suddenly announced that 5 zones in Western Tigray would be removed from Mekelle's jurisdiction.

In the days before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow quietly pre-positioned field blood supplies along the Ukrainian frontier. Contrary to those arguing that Russia was posturing to secure concessions from Kyiv and its allies, to military analysts, the deployment of plasma was a logistical signal that Russia was preparing for sustained combat, not bargaining. No one is tracking the movement of plasma —or lack thereof —towards Tigray in Ethiopia, but with thousands of soldiers streaming towards the northern region, it is hard not to feel an impending dread that full-scale war may soon return.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's diplomatic tour continues apace. Since 26 December and Israel's bombshell recognition of Somaliland, Hassan Sheikh has travelled to Türkiye, Ethiopia, and, in recent days, Egypt and Qatar, rallying support for his government, and Somalia's "unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity." And he has found success in three of these four, with Ankara, Cairo, and Doha sitting on one side of a broader Red Sea schism against the Emirati-Israeli axis. Somaliland ally, Emirati broker and regionally isolated Ethiopia, as ever, continues to hedge its bets

There are rivalries born from distance, and rivalries born from closeness. Nearly three decades of Ethiopia-Eritrea feuding —barring the brief, destructive interregnum in Tigray —is borne of the latter. The depth of the socio-cultural linkages between modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea dates back centuries, with the shared highlands part of the sophisticated Axumite kingdom that stretched into the Arabian Peninsula.

A brief resumption of fighting in Western Tigray between Tigrayan and federal troops last week has returned the fraught context of northern Ethiopia back to the precipice of full-blown conflict. Details remain murky, but for at least three days, deadly clashes flared in the contested Tselemt area between Tigrayan troops and the Ethiopian military.