Next Africa: Growing war talk

[Deeq A.]

Bolstered by regional proxies, Horn of Africa nations are back to saber-rattling.

The risk of renewed conflict in the region has increased since Jan. 1 when Ethiopia struck a deal to secure direct passage to the Indian Ocean via Somaliland. The semi-autonomous region said Addis Ababa offered to become the first government in Africa to recognize its claim to sovereignty.

Egypt and Eritrea immediately came out on Somalia’s side. 

Somalis protest in Mogadishu against the agreement between Ethiopia and Somaliland. Photographer: Abdishukri Haybe/AFP/Getty Images

Cairo signed a security pact with Somalia and this week sent two aircraft laden with weapons and ammunition to Mogadishu, the first such delivery of Egyptian military hardware to the East African nation in decades.

Ethiopia responded with a warning: “Forces trying to inflame tension for their short-term and futile objectives must shoulder the grave ramifications.”  

The saga rips off the bandage on the still-simmering clash over Ethiopia’s construction of a massive dam on a Nile tributary that may disrupt water flows to Egypt and Sudan.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hasn’t been afraid to raise the temperatures, demanding that his country be given access to the coast — something it lost three decades ago when Eritrea gained independence after a civil war.

Western officials fear all the strands and posturing will come to boiling point in coming months.

The distraction of an American election may be seen as a window to act without a Washington response. Also, an African Union military force battling the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab in Somalia will come to an end.

Somalia has demanded that Ethiopian troops be excluded from a new peacekeeping mission and has threatened to block planes from its neighbor’s airline from flying into its territory over the Somaliland spat.

With Sudan already torn apart by conflict, the region can hardly afford the war of words in the Horn of Africa to escalate.            

Source:  Bloomberg 

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