Tensions are simmering between Ethiopia and Sudan over territory along their border, which threatens to engulf Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, into another major conflict as it fights with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Deutsche Welle, the German paper, reported last week that the tension over the land goes back to when the border was drawn up with Britain in 1902 and 1907. Ethiopian farmers took to the land and, in 2008, a so-called “soft border” was agreed on.
William Davidson, a senior analyst for Ethiopia at International Crisis Group, told the newspaper that despite the farming, “there seemed to be an understanding that it didn’t mean it was Ethiopian land.”
These farmers have raised crops in the al-Faqsha region for decades.
But in 2018, when the TPLF conceded power, the relationship between the two countries took a turn for the worse. With Ethiopia’s conflict in the Tigray region, the war is spreading into Sudan. Not only are tens of thousands of people fleeing into Sudan to escape the violence, but the war has also sparked fears in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, that an Ethiopian land grab is inevitable.
As we have been reporting since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the war against Tigray in November, he said it was because they had a vote in September, despite a countrywide voting ban due to the COVID outbreak.
As with former U.S. President Barack Obama who, after being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, launched a troop surge in Afghanistan, started the Libyan war, and supported the war against the ruling Syrian government… Ahmed launched the Tigray war after being a recipient as well of the Nobel Peace Prize.
He accused the TPLF of attacking a military base. Tigray was considered a potential threat to his power because it makes up about 6 percent of the country’s population of 110 million, and it has ruled Ethiopia for two decades.
Yibeltal Aemero, Ethiopia’s ambassador to Sudan, told the paper that Khartoum is taking advantage of the conflict in Tigray.
“When the Ethiopian National Defense forces moved to the Tigray region on November 4, 2020, the Sudanese army took the advantage and entered deep inside Ethiopian territory, looted properties, burned camps, detained, attacked and killed the Ethiopians while displacing thousands,” he told the paper.
Sudan reported a military aircraft from Ethiopia entered its airspace earlier this month, which was seen as a brazen act of defiance.
Al-Monitor, a website that covers news in the Middle East, reported Ahmed hinted in December that Egypt could be playing a role in stoking tensions. The website pointed to the Chinese-financed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has created a “rising rivalry between Egypt and Ethiopia.” The website said Egypt considers “control of the Nile an existential issue.”
Ethiopia stands to control the downstream flow of the river. Sameh Shoukri, the Egyptian foreign minister, told the website the dam “could endanger the security and the very survival of an entire nation by imperiling its wellspring of sustenance.”
TREND FORECAST: We have been warning that the conflict in Tigray will destabilize the Horn of Africa. The report about the growing tension between Ethiopia and Sudan comes while Eritrean forces are believed to have joined the fight to defeat forces in Tigray. (The Associated Press reported it is also believed that Somali soldiers were sent to Eritrea for training to join in the conflict.)
We also forecast that more people affected by the conflict will seek refuge in European nations, which will, in turn, boost populist political party movements throughout the Eurozone.
Dominic Raab, the U.K. foreign secretary, said last week that the reputation of Addis Ababa is “being tarnished” by the conflict in Tigray, and he called on the prime minister to allow access to the region. Raab is scheduled to visit the country. Raab said he hopes to talk to Ahmed, but his main objective is to get humanitarian relief into the region.
Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, said last week there has been “a number of deeply, deeply concerning atrocities directed at the people of Tigray.”
Considering Mr. Blinken’s past support of Barack Obama’s wars when he served as deputy secretary of state and also Joe Biden’s record of supporting every war and regime change since he was elected into the Senate in 1973, we forecast strong U.S. military intervention in the region.
