Eritrea severed diplomatic relations with Ethiopia on Thursday after Addis Ababa closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats. Eritrea's foreign ministry accused Ethiopia of an "agenda of incessant hostility" including infringing on its coastal areas and arming opposition fighters. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival. Both sides reject the other's claims. The rupture formalizes what has been obvious for months: the 2018 rapprochement between Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki is dead. The fighting in northern Ethiopia is now the most severe since the 2020-2022 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands. Clashes are concentrated in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar. Ethiopian federal forces have made significant gains, taking several towns in Tigray and closing in on the regional capital Mekelle, while a pro-government group in Afar recaptured the town of Erebti with what it described as "magnificent air support." Rebel forces maintain what Al Jazeera's bureau chief described as a "strong rear link with Eritrea" along the border. The conflict hit Addis Ababa for the first time early Thursday when an explosion struck the Ministry of Defence. A diplomatic source told AFP that small drones were the most probable cause. While Ethiopia's army possesses the larger drone arsenal, rebel forces have previously used drones to target airbases and airports across the country, according to conflict monitor ACLED. The bilateral dispute is now entangled with at least three other regional fault lines. Ethiopia accuses Egypt and Sudan of joining Eritrea in backing Tigrayan rebel forces. Egypt and Ethiopia have also expelled diplomats, with Cairo calling Ethiopia's move "regrettable and unjustified." The Egypt-Ethiopia relationship was already poisoned by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Cairo views as a direct threat to its water security and Nile water share. Sudan's military-backed government accuses Ethiopia of backing rebel forces in Sudan's own civil conflict. As Chatham House senior research fellow Ahmed Soliman told Al Jazeera: "The conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan have become more interconnected, with the Ethiopian government and Sudanese Armed Forces accusing each other of harbouring and equipping respective opposition forces." The structural problem is a web of reciprocal proxy warfare with no mediator and no off-ramp. Ethiopia backs anti-Sudanese rebels; Sudan and Eritrea back anti-Ethiopian rebels; Egypt backs whoever weakens Ethiopia's dam leverage. Each actor's security investment in destabilizing its neighbour creates a return loop that destabilizes itself. The system is designed to escalate. Analysts are blunt about the trajectory. Laura Hammond of SOAS University of London told Al Jazeera that regional spread is "already playing out" and warned of Eritrea becoming more involved on the ground inside Tigray. Martin Plaut, a Horn of Africa specialist, said there is a "real danger" of the conflict spreading, warning it "would only require a spark to ignite a conflagration that could engulf" both countries and Sudan. The roots run deep. Ethiopia annexed Eritrea in 1962; an independence war secured Eritrean sovereignty in 1993; a border war followed from 1998 to 2000. Abiy Ahmed's 2018 peace initiative papered over unresolved territorial claims. His repeated assertions that landlocked Ethiopia has a "right to sea access" are interpreted in Asmara as a declaration of territorial conflict. The current fighting is not a new crisis — it is the old crisis with the diplomatic pretense stripped away and the proxy networks fully activated.
