Fact Box: Which Countries Have Interests in the Ethiopian War? – Africa – World

Ethiopian troops are fighting rebel forces in the northern Tigray region of the country. The consequences of the conflict in Africa’s second most populous nation are already spreading to Ethiopia’s neighbors, threatening to further destabilize a fragile region.

ERITREA – Three missiles fired by Tigray forces crashed into the Eritrean capital Asmara this weekend. Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1991, but the two nations returned to war over a border dispute in 1998-2000, when the Tigrayan ethnic group dominated Ethiopian politics.

Tigray’s ancestry ended when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took power in 2018. Last year, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for signing a peace agreement with Eritrea. Abiy’s approach to Eritrea enraged Tigrayan leaders and came as several high-ranking former Tigray officials were tried for abuse and corruption.

SUDAN – Since fighting began in Tigray, at least 25,000 refugees have crossed the border into a cash-strapped Sudan, where a joint civil-military government is struggling to cement fragile peace accords with a plethora of armed groups. The strip of territory next to Sudan is the only Tigray border that is not controlled by Ethiopian or Eritrean forces.

Sudan has a long-running border dispute with Ethiopia, both sides claiming the fertile Fashqa triangle, but the largest dispute between the two nations centers on Ethiopia’s gigantic Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which dams the waters of the Blue Nile. Both Egypt and Sudan are concerned that the $ 4 billion dam could threaten their water supplies.

EGYPT – Egypt and Sudan are conducting joint warfare exercises this week, scheduled long before the Tigrayan conflict broke out, but intended to be a joint show of force amid the unresolved dispute over the Ethiopian dam in the Nile.

Egypt, which is the third most populous nation in Africa, depends on the Nile for more than 90% of its freshwater supplies and wants a legally binding treaty on how Ethiopia can use the waters of the Nile Bule.

SOMALIA – Ethiopian troops are in Somalia as part of an African Union peacekeeping force and as bilateral forces. Somalia, ravaged by civil war since 1991, is fighting the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda al Shabaab, which has also carried out attacks in Ethiopia. Ethiopia shares a long and porous border with Somalia and has a large ethnically Somali population.

DJIBOUTI – Little Djibouti outweighs its weight in the region because it is home to US and Chinese military bases and because its port is the only access to the Ethiopian sea. Djibouti, which borders Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, has issued a statement calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and the opening of humanitarian corridors.

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