Issue No. 523

The Horn of Africa's political fate has always been wired to external commercial interests, with its expansive eastern edge on the Red Sea serving as an aorta of trade for millennia. A Greek merchant's manual from the 1st century AD describes the port of Obone in modern-day Puntland as a hub of ivory, tortoiseshell, enslaved people and cinnamon destined for Egypt. Today, as so often quoted, between 12-15% of the world's seaborne trade passes along the arterial waterway, with the Suez Canal bridging Europe and Asia. But well before the globalised world or the vying Gulf and Middle Powers over the Red Sea's littoral administrations, the logic of 'gunboat diplomacy' underpinned the passage over these seas.

Once on the US-designated terrorist sanctions list, it is unsurprisingly rather difficult to come off it. And with the US designating the 'Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood' as terrorists, elements of Khartoum's military government may now have the dubious honour of being on it twice. First time out in 1993, Khartoum was deemed a US State Sponsor of Terror in the wake of a raft of jihadist plots linked to the Islamist authorities in Sudan. Nearly three decades later, and only after Sudan's partial ascension to the Abraham Accords, the title and punishing sanctions were lifted for the civilian-military transitional government. Today, though the warring Sudan is no longer home to an Osama bin Laden or Carlos the Jackal, a US labelling of 'terrorist' has returned to Khartoum.

At the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990s, the bloated, corrupt, and clan-riven national army was nevertheless in possession of vast quantities of light weapons. Much of it sourced during Somalia's ill-fated alliance with the USSR and later Western and Arab patrons, government armouries were soon plundered by warring militias across Mogadishu, Kismaayo, Baidoa, and every garrison town as the country descended into chaos, providing the ammunition for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

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 Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch recounts that King Pyrrhus of Epirus, after defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC, lamented, "One more such victory over the Romans and we are completely done for." After almost four torturous years, the same might be said for any more supposed 'victories' for the incumbent federal government of Somalia. To nobody's surprise, the constitutional 'review' process undertaken by Somalia's federal government was never about implementing direct democracy after all. It was, as widely anticipated, a thinly veiled power grab intended to centralise political power, eviscerate Somalia's federal system, and extend the term of the incumbent president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM). And so, at the 11th hour and with less than 70 days remaining in his term of office, HSM declared Somalia's new constitutional text 'complete' and signed it into 'law.'

On 4 March 2026, Somalia's Federal Parliament hastily ratified dozens of controversial constitutional amendments, thus finalising President Hassan Sheikh's tailor-made Constitution. Speaker Aden Madobe has now declared the new revised Constitution effective immediately. In doing so, the speaker and his government have deliberately destroyed the existing social contract agreed upon by the people of Somalia.

At the end of February, Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed departed on a rather unusual visit to Baku, Azerbaijan. Slated as a meeting between two emerging powers, a focus on trade and investment frameworks was particularly emphasised by Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos. More importantly, of course, was the signing of a comprehensive defence agreement by the two countries on 27 February. Spanning drone technology, armoured vehicles, artillery shell production, and air defence, the new agreement builds upon a framework from November 2025, which also included reference to refurbishing T-72 tanks, electronic warfare, and military-industrial manufacturing. Though war has not yet returned to Tigray as many feared, Abiy's vision of a militarised domestic —and regional —posture no doubt requires more hardware.

Ramadan is known as the 'Month of Mercy', typically characterised by forgiveness and reconciliation within the Islamic world. Not so in Somalia, where Villa Somalia's ruinous push to 'finalise' the Provisional Constitution has taken another grim twist in recent days. The collapse of opposition-government talks on 22 February was inevitable, with Villa Somalia's flippancy evident in the needless arguments over venue and security personnel.

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.