The Horn Edition

The politics of 2015 can feel almost quaint in light of the international system today. In the years since, the post-World War II order has run aground, with a dizzing new world system now taking shape in Trump's second term. At that time, however, the petrodollar monarchies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were once again beginning to flex their own geostrategic muscle on the Arabian Peninsula, expanding both their reach and gaze.

It is easy to reach for clichés when looking back at 2025 for the Horn of Africa: civil war in Sudan, insurgency in Ethiopia, a collapsed peace settlement in South Sudan, and youth discontent throughout Kenya, Tanzania, and beyond. But what is apparent is that, just a couple of weeks before 2026, the region is facing its worst moment for decades.

Last week, Oxfam released a damning report detailing the scale of Kenya's wealth disparity, revealing that just 125 individuals control more wealth than 77% of the population-- 42.6 million people. The report, entitled 'Kenya's Inequality Crisis: The Great Economic Divide,' outlined that since 2015, those living on less than KES 130 a day had risen by 7 million, while the wealthiest 1% had captured nearly 40% of all new wealth created between 2019 and 2023. Such glaring inequalities are self-evident across much of Kenya, with gleaming new highrises jutting up against slums throughout Nairobi. But so too are these patterns of wealth inequalities reflected across the broader Horn of Africa, driving a surge in youth discontent that has bubbled over in Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

The past weeks have seen a glut of international attention on Sudan. First, the gruesome and long-anticipated fall of El Fasher in North Darfur to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) at the end of October, precipitating, as all anticipated, reports of the most egregious human rights violations, including widespread massacres. At the same time, the renewed push for a ceasefire between the paramilitaries and the Sudanese army is generating widespread speculation that —for the first time since a few brief hours at the outbreak of the war in April 2023 —there may just be a window of opportunity to ease the suffering.

The churn of Juba's political web continues, with the spider at its centre—South Sudanese President Salva Kiir—continuing his Machiavellian reshuffling apace. But last week, it went up a notch, with the president stripping his apparent successor, Benjamin Bol Mel, of his titles and powers in the latest twist in the court of Kiir.

Tanzania has often been dismissed as the somewhat 'sleepy' neighbour of Kenya, perceived as a more stable one-party state, unaffected by the spasms of protests and discontent of Nairobi's flawed democracy. Certainly, though Tanzania has upheld the trappings of democracy —including term limits and elections —the once-socialist ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has suppressed most opposition. And so elections in Tanzania have been typically subdued affairs, with the result known well before anyone casts their ballot. That was, of course, until last month, when the perception of Tanzania as a regional bastion of stability came crashing down in brutally violent scenes over the rigged election by incumbent Samia Suluhu Hassan. Not only has it been the latest bloody expression of widespread youth discontent, but it has also cast a light on the increasingly authoritarian tactics shared by the region's unpopular regimes.

Despite rumours of declining health, Djibouti’s President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh’s (IOG) is maneuvering to extend his grip on power amid growing tensions over succession. The 77 year-old leader, who took power in 1999 as his uncle’s hand-picked successor, has pushed through constitutional changes that allow him to run again in 2026, with the age limit having been scrapped on 2 November – moves that have further ignited both public discontent and simmering rivalries between Djibouti’s Afar and Issa communities. Guelleh, has maintained a relatively low public profile in the past year. In late September 2024, social media reports claimed he had been hospitalised and flown to Paris due to critical illness, with some even suggesting internet outages in Djibouti aimed at suppressing news of his condition. His Finance Minister, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, flatly disputed reports that Guelleh was critically ill, confirming only that the president had an issue with his right knee. But these denials, along with his refusal to establish a clear succession plan, have only intensified speculation about Djibouti’s political future. As IOG clings to power, the prospect of a succession crisis looms large, threatening instability in the nation.

Across 18 months, through incessant bombardment and induced starvation, the capital of North Darfur held out against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Assault after assault was repelled by predominantly Zaghawa fighters under the army-allied Joint Forces, aware of the massacres of indigenous Darfurians at El Geneina, Nyala, and across Darfur at the hands of the Sahelian Arab paramilitaries in 2023 and 2003. But, eventually, the pressure proved too great, and the city of El Fasher has now fallen to the Emirati-backed RSF-- with all the litany of atrocities feared seemingly coming to pass. Ineffectual pleas from a disengaged international community for the paramilitaries not to burn, kill, rape, and pillage have inevitably fallen on deaf ears. And while Quad-centred negotiations collapsed in Washington, El Fasher's fall redraws Sudan's map in stark and potentially irreversible terms.

Many thousands of miles from the Horn of Africa, the small Caribbean nation of Haiti and its capital, Port-au-Prince, remain engulfed in brutal gang warfare. Since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, the country has slipped ever further into chaos, with rival paramilitary gangs seizing control over most of the capital and inducing a widespread humanitarian crisis. No elections have been held since 2016, most government services have ground to a halt, and the transnational drug gangs-- led by notorious individuals such as Jimmy Chérizier 'Barbecue'-- continue to act with impunity, with the Haitian police badly outnumbered and outgunned. Over two years ago, and in light of a problematic history of foreign interventionism in the country, the US and others—following a request from ousted Haitian PM Ariel Henry—pushed for a nation from the Global South to take the lead in responding to the collapsing state.