In mid-June, a highly choreographed show of bonhomie was organised at the Mereb Bridge in Tigray, which connects Ethiopia's northernmost region to Eritrea. Waving Eritrean and Tigrayan flags, communities seemingly came together in an attempt to display a buried hatchet at the local level, over two years on from the calamitous war that left hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans dead. These bizarre images, rather than reflecting any genuine move towards reconciliation or justice and accountability, are instead part of the deepening ties between the dominant faction within the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in Mekelle and Asmara. Behind the warming relations, however, are eerie similarities with the current rhetoric of Mekelle, Addis, and Asmara, and that of the months leading up to November 2020 and the outbreak of war.
On 11 June, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized a strategic tri-border zone between Sudan, Libya, and Egypt, known as Jebel Uweinat. Declaring the area "liberated" from a small Sudanese army border garrison, the capture of remote Jebel Uweinat will provide the paramilitaries with further access to Libya's porous southern frontier and their ally, the Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, as well as Sudan's northern states. Amidst this flashpoint, which will allow the RSF to continue to funnel in weapons and supplies, the broader, destructive armed conflict remains intractable, with no credible political or peace process in sight.
Addis's Risky Red Sea Gambit Through The Afar In recent months, the question of 'Afar unity' has resurfaced- and this time on the initiative of the Ethiopian federal government. Today, the Cushitic, predominantly agro-pastoralist people comprise roughly two million and straddle some of the most strategic territory in the Horn of Africa, populating north-eastern Ethiopia, eastern Eritrea, and parts of Djibouti. Marginalised in all three countries where they form a minority, the Afar have long advocated for reestablishing their trifurcated communities under a single flag. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, Addis's gaze has returned to Assab in Eritrea as the site for its vague 'sea access' and has subsequently played upon the Afar historical and anthropological claims to the Eritrean territory on the Red Sea. Having first surfaced in late 2023, PM Abiy Ahmed, as well as senior Ethiopian generals, at the recent Prosperity Party Executive Committee meeting in mid-April again advocated for Afar unity.