Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia – Ethiopian troops are massing near the northern border as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s bold campaign to secure access to the Red Sea raises fears of a renewed, devastating conflict in the Horn of Africa.
Backed by tanks and heavy artillery, thousands of Ethiopian federal forces have moved into positions just miles from ethnic Tigrayan rebels, The Wall Street Journal reported, following renewed clashes in late January 2026.
The government accuses the rebels of violating a fragile 2022 truce that ended a brutal two-year civil war in which an estimated 600,000 people were killed.
In a dramatic shift in regional alliances, Eritrean infantry units, wary of Addis Ababa’s maritime ambitions, are now reportedly crossing the porous border to reinforce the Tigrayans, according to regional observers and military sources cited by the US newspaper.
“There are indications that a renewed outbreak of hostilities may be imminent,” Magnus Taylor, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, told The Wall Street Journal.
The tensions are deeply rooted in Ethiopia’s geography.
The country lost its 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometres) of Red Sea coastline in 1993 when Eritrea broke away after a three-decade war of independence.
That secession left Ethiopia strategically landlocked, forcing Africa’s second-most-populous nation to rely heavily on neighbouring Djibouti for maritime trade at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion annually.
‘Geographically imprisoned’
Over the past three years, Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has increasingly framed the loss of the coastline as a historical injustice that must be corrected.
“We have been geographically imprisoned for a long time — this is not right,” Abiy said recently, pointing specifically to Eritrea’s port of Assab, located just 30 miles (50 kilometres) from the Ethiopian border.
“Sea access is the key,” he added.
While the prime minister publicly insisted in early March that Ethiopia “will not fire a single bullet” at its neighbours, his rhetoric has been accompanied by muscular military displays.
At a recent parade of special forces in southern Ethiopia, banners prominently declared that the nation would not remain landlocked “whether you like it or not.”
Analysts at the International Crisis Group suggest Abiy may feel “emboldened to act in a world where the rules-based international order appears increasingly eroded.”
In a speech to parliament, Abiy even cited Israel’s 1967 seizure of the Golan Heights, hinting that nations can secure territory by force when necessary for their survival.
Shifting alliances
The maritime push has deeply unsettled Eritrea, which views Abiy’s aspirations as a direct threat of military aggression.
The geopolitical chessboard is further complicated by the demographics and historical power dynamics of Ethiopia’s restive north.
Ethnic Tigrayans account for just six percent of Ethiopia’s 130 million people, but their political and military elite dominated the country’s government for three decades before Abiy, who is from the Oromo ethnic group, rose to power in 2018.
When fighting first erupted in 2020 after Tigrayan rebels attacked a federal military base, Eritrea allied with Ethiopia to crush the insurgency.
Today, diplomats say Tigrayan rebel commanders have convinced their former Eritrean foes that an alliance is their only path to survival against a resurgent federal government.
The president of the Tigray region, General Tadesse Werede, recently said that while his government seeks a political settlement, his troops are prepared to repel an Ethiopian invasion.
“Just because we want peace does not mean we do not want to defend ourselves,” he said.
Civilians in Tigray are already fleeing border areas, with witnesses reporting long queues at banks in the regional capital, Mekelle, and grocery store shelves rapidly emptying.
Overlapping crises
Ethiopia’s quest for the sea extends far beyond Eritrea.
In 2024, Addis Ababa struck a controversial deal with Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, to lease 20 kilometres of coastline in exchange for potential diplomatic recognition.
The move infuriated Somalia and drew in Egypt, which firmly opposes Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile.
In February 2026, Cairo reportedly offered to support Ethiopia’s access to ports in Djibouti and Eritrea, but only on the strict condition that Addis Ababa abandon its naval base ambitions and yield to Egypt’s demands regarding Nile water sharing.
The diplomatic manoeuvring comes as instability is already choking the strategic Red Sea and Gulf of Aden waterways.
Sudan is mired in a devastating civil war, Somalia faces dual insurgencies from Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked groups, and Houthi militants in Yemen continue to target freighters plying the seas between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.
A new conflict in Ethiopia would add another layer of volatility to a shipping corridor that handles around 15 percent of global trade.
It also threatens to derail Ethiopia’s economic trajectory.
The International Monetary Fund projects double-digit growth for Ethiopia this year, and the United States recently announced plans to help finance a $10 billion airport outside Addis Ababa.
However, as Abiy redeploys federal forces away from other internal insurgencies, such as the one in the Amhara region, to mass on the Tigray border, experts warn that he may be overextending his military.
“Ethiopia is simply redeploying its army because federal forces lack the capacity to manage multiple crises simultaneously,” Stefano Ritondale, chief intelligence officer at the risk-intelligence firm Artorias, told The Wall Street Journal.
