The respected Brussels-based think tank, the International Crisis Group, has identified three conflicts in Africa as among the 10 world-wide which –  following a violence-wracked 2025 – are expected to continue and which should receive most attention in 2026. The ICG’s list of “conflicts to watch” include those affecting Ethiopia and Eritrea, Mali and Burkina Faso and Sudan. The following is the group’s analysis of the tensions which plague Ethiopia and Eritrea. (Read the ICG’s over-arching commentary on the 10 conflicts here: https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/10-conflicts-watch-2026 )

With Sudan ablaze, a clash between two of its neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, could tip the Horn of Africa into all-out conflagration. Addis Ababa and Asmara, having traded barbs for months, may be edging toward war. A distracted world is largely ignoring this brewing crisis, too.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed blames Eritrea for stirring up trouble in his country by training and arming anti-government militias. Eritrea, in turn, paints Ethiopia as the aggressor. Abiy insists that he seeks to end his country’s status as the world’s most populous landlocked country. Asmara worries that he aims to reconquer its ports, to which Ethiopia enjoyed unfettered access before Eritrea’s 1993 secession.

If the question of Ethiopia’s  sea access   and Eritrea’s demand for the respect of its territorial sovereignty dominate public discourse, the roots of today’s tensions are of more recent vintage.

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After Abiy came to power in 2018, ending the three-decade rule of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), he quickly forged an alliance with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. Isaias had fought alongside the TPLF in the 1974-1991 civil war that ousted military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. He later fell out with TPLF leaders and has long considered them bitter enemies. Abiy, bidding to consolidate his rule amid stiff opposition from the TPLF, saw Asmara as a useful ally.

Two years after Addis Ababa’s rapprochement with Asmara, war erupted between Ethiopia and the Tigrayan leadership. Eritrean troops fought on the side of the federal government, as did allied militias from the Amhara and Afar regions, to Tigray’s south. At the end of 2022, federal forces overwhelmed Tigrayan defenses. Talks in Pretoria, South Africa resulted in the signing of a cessation of hostilities deal in early November 2022.

The war’s end brought relief but opened new fissures. Isaias opposed the peace negotiations, from which he was excluded. He felt that the Tigrayan leadership was on the run and should be dealt a decisive blow. Abiy, however, preferred to engage with a weakened TPLF leadership, no doubt hedging against the danger of future confrontation with Eritrea.

Since that deal, Addis Ababa has fought a shadow war with both Asmara and Ethiopia’s Amhara community. Abiy accuses Eritrea of supporting an insurgency by an Amhara militia known as Fano as well as Oromo Liberation Army rebels active in the country’s largest region, Oromia. Then, on 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia’s “mistake” of giving up sea access would be “corrected”.

Fractures within Tigray add another volatile element. In the war’s aftermath, the Tigrayan leadership descended into  infighting . One camp is led by Getachew Reda, the TPLF’s representative at the Pretoria talks who favors re-engagement with Addis Ababa. The other, whose most prominent face is former regional leader Debretsion Gebremichael, sees the Pretoria deal and its aftermath as a humiliating surrender. In a surprise turn, Debretsion’s faction has now forged ties with Tigray’s old enemy in Asmara and forced Getachew and his associates to flee to the Ethiopian capital.

All sides are now locked in a staring contest. Ethiopia and Eritrea have reportedly extensively rearmed following the Tigray war. Factions in Tigray have clashed, dragging in federal forces. Amhara militias appear to enjoy Asmara’s support. The leadership of Afar, which abuts Eritrea’s lowlands near its seaports, has cast its lot with Addis Ababa.

The last full-fledged Ethiopia-Eritrea war, from 1998 to 2000, featured World War I-style trench fighting in which tens of thousands of soldiers died. Today, Sudan’s war adds to the dangers. Asmara backs the Sudanese army. Addis Ababa has strived to maintain neutrality but could step up support for the Rapid Support Forces in the event of a new conflict. An Ethiopia-Eritrea war could thus morph into a regional conflagration.

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There are reasons to hope Ethiopia and Eritrea will not step off the cliff. Neither can predict the outcome of a costly war that could well turn into a quagmire. Ethiopia’s leadership wants continued support from the International Monetary Fund, which new hostilities would imperil. Few in Tigray want more fighting so soon after the last devastating round.

Still, considering the stakes, more needs to be done to mitigate risks. Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, which were all pivotal in securing the Pretoria agreement, should shuttle between the two capitals, emphasising the dangers if they should come to blows. Others with influence in Addis Ababa and Asmara – the U.S. especially but also China, the European Union, Gulf Arab countries, Türkiye and the UN – should reinforce that message. A new confrontation, this time between two states and their powerful armies, would be ruinous for a region already devastated by the Tigray conflict and now Sudan’s war.