A region on the brink

Warning that East Africa is on the brink of renewed fighting has become an evergreen remark these days. There hasn’t been a year since 2018 when someone hasn’t insisted that at least one country in the region must be pulled back from the edge of the abyss; Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia have seen ruinous wars in the last six years which have brought their states to their knees. It is now 2025, and, sadly, one can still warn that East Africa stands on the brink of renewed fighting. 

Looking back now to the start of 2025, those who were hopeful that Donald Trump’s unorthodox style would augur better for peace prospects than that of his predecessor, Joe Biden, can, with hindsight, be forgiven for their naivety. The world now seems more dangerous than ever, and his promises of being a peacemaker ring hollow as the president begins his side hustle moonlighting as a Tesla salesman.  

In this region, 2025 started with a surprise take over by the Rwanda-backed M23 group, and the larger Congo River Alliance (CRA), of the cities Goma and Bukavu in North and South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo respectively. It isn’t entirely clear what their overarching goals are, as yet. Writing for Geeska, Congolese activist Vava Tampa argued that Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, who recently secured a staggering 99% of the vote in a mandate from the Rwandan people (eyes emoji), harbours territorial ambitions in the eastern DRC. Others argue that M23 is merely a front group that allows Kigali to smuggle “blood minerals” out of the country. Somehow, Rwanda—resource-scarce as it is—has, over the past few years, become a major exporter of coltan, tin, and cobalt, all metals found in abundance in North and South Kivu. 

Even more unsettling was a declaration made by Corneille Nangaa, head of the Congo River Alliance—of which M23 is a member—in late January, when he said, “we will continue the march of liberation all the way to Kinshasa.” Emmet Livingstone, a journalist based in the DRC who travelled to Goma in the early days of the city’s fall, was asked by NPR whether we should take Nangaa’s statement seriously, or if it was merely rhetoric. His reply: “In a word, serious.” He added the caveat that it was a “long way off”, but really couldn’t rule out the prospect of regime change in the DRC. Whilst it remains unclear exactly how many people have been killed in the fighting, we do know that before M23 began its offensive seven million people were displaced across the DRC and hundreds of thousands more have now swelled that figure this year.  

The US has shaken off its slumber on this issue, moving to sanction James Kabarebe, a Rwandan minister believed to be the architect of the M23 offensive, and Lawrence Kanyuka Kingston, the group’s spokesperson. But the group has continued its march, as Félix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, rebuffs direct talks with them, insisting instead that he speak directly with their boss. Kagame insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the M23 group is a purely Congolese movement and that Tshisekedi should speak directly with them. Kanyuka has similarly blasted Tshisekedi’s “intransigence” and said he isn’t sincerely engaging with Angola’s attempts to find a way out. We’re at an impasse and it isn’t clear whether Tshisekedi or Kagame will climb down. In the meantime, all manner of horrific reports have been emerging from everywhere the M23 group goes, from mass rapes, to children carrying weapons. 

In neighbouring South Sudan, Ugandan soldiers have arrived in the capital, Juba, to prevent the possibility of fighting breaking out between forces loyal to the president, Salva Kiir and forces loyal to Riek Machar, one of five vice presidents. 

Tensions have been escalating in recent weeks, during which a series of moves by Kiir and his opponents have steadily eroded the fragile peace agreement forged between the two leaders in 2018. That agreement, which had brought an end to a five-year civil war that claimed 400,000 lives, now hangs in the balance. In mid-February, Kiir dismissed several ministers, a governor linked to Machar, and re-deployed government forces—actions that, according to Machar, breached the 2018 accord. 

The redeployment of these forces triggered violent clashes between government troops and a militia known as the White Army, which draws members from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group and is linked to the vice president. The fighting made international headlines in early March when a UN rescue helicopter, evacuating South Sudanese soldiers in Upper Nile State, came under attack by the White Army, killing 27 people, according to the government. This figure was disputed by the White Army, which claimed it had returned fire after soldiers guarding the helicopter shot at them. The arrests of several of Machar’s allies earlier this month, which also prompted protests, has contributed to an overall atmosphere of distrust between the men. Alan Boswell, who follows South Sudan for the International Crisis Group, told the New York Times that the country is “slipping rapidly toward full-blown war”. 

The International Crisis Group (ICG), citing unnamed diplomats, reported that the recent uptick in violence in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State is probably linked to the flow of arms from Sudan’s civil war. Over the past months, the now cash-strapped South Sudanese government has struggled to export oil due to damage to the pipeline that runs through Sudan and into the Red Sea. As a result, Kiir has invested in ties with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the UAE to manage that shortfall. In a retaliatory move, some diplomats believe, the Sudanese army has re-established ties with the Nuer militias, who are aligned with Machar. The ICG considers this interpretation of developments “plausible” after its own inquiries. 

More recently, Sudan has also alleged that a UAE-built hospital near the Sudanese border with South Sudan is a front to provide medical aid to the RSF, which authorities in Juba deny.

Even Somalia’s president called both Kiir and Machar, expressing his "deep concern" over recent developments in the country, as he himself struggles to find avenues for dialogue to resolve his own feuds with the leader of Puntland, Said Deni, and Ahmed Madobe of Jubaland. As pointed out by Geeska editor, Faisal Ali, they all find it easier to speak to Mohammed bin Zayed than to each other, even as IS-Somalia and al-Shabaab continue to wage violent insurgencies across the country. “Ignoring questions about what might be gained through pooling resources and scaling up, the federal government and regional forces have been fighting among themselves,” he writes, noting a skirmish that erupted in December, forcing Somali federal forces to lay down their arms and flee into Kenya.

At present, Puntland’s leadership and US intelligence believe that Islamic State’s global leadership has relocated to northern Puntland, where regional forces have spent several weeks chasing the militants into the hills and uploading graphic footage of corpses to their Telegram account. Officials in Garowe have succeeded in enlisting the UAE and the US in the war, with both conducting airstrikes and reconnaissance information for Puntland's fighters. More could be achieved if there were a détente with the federal government, who might be able to provide further resources as Hassan Sheikh Mohamud promised when he reopened parliament last month. However, Deni and Mohamud remain locked in a standoff over the latter's proposals to amend the Somali constitution and hold what will undoubtedly be a farcical election. 

Puntland, however, is ultimately fighting a much leaner militant group in its northern hills. Al-Shabaab is the main external threat to the government and it forced the government to the backfoot in the Middle Shabelle region. Just days ago, in a show of force, al-Shabaab attacked and besieged Cairo Hotel in Beledweyne, a spot popular with politicians, army officers and other local elites killing 10 people. This follows reports of large gains by the group, in the Middle Shabelle and Hiiraan regions. In late February, al-Shabaab attacked and overran a Somali army base in Balcad, a town 35km from the capital Mogadishu. In March, local reports indicated that al-Shabaab had encircled Jowhar, the capital of the Hirshabelle federal state, and had captured other towns and cities in the region. According to Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, al-Shabaab has seized around 15 settlements since late February. Ethiopia has been called in to carry out airstrikes to halt the flow. 

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made a surprise visit to Abu Dhabi last week, where, amid growing speculation about al-Shabaab’s prospects of ousting the government, he is believed to have appealed for financial and military support. Setting aside his hostile rhetoric towards the UAE in recent months due to its ties with Hargeisa, this is the same president who, upon coming to power, promised he would eradicate the group. At the moment, the Somali public is speculating so much about the fate of the federal government that Mukhtar Robow, the religious affairs minister, felt the need to weigh in. In a defensive (and diplomatically unwise) statement addressing al-Shabaab, Robow said: “Mogadishu is not Kabul. And Mogadishu is not Damascus. And your Ahmed [Umar] is not Ahmed al-Sharaa.” We agree. Speculation about the imminent fall of the capital is ridiculous at this stage, but while it is true that Ahmed Diriye is no Ahmed al-Sharaa, neither is Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. In two days, al-Sharaa reached an agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to reintegrate them into the state and achieved the same with the Druze community in Suweyda, repairing his fractured state through compromise and maturity. Mohamud has only undone what little gains Somalia has made in state building over the last few years. Somalia remains stagnant and adrift under Mohamud’s second term, neither really coming or going, simply repeating boring cycles of old. 

But it is in Ethiopia where the major concern lies now. Over the course of his premiership, Abiy Ahmed has stumbled from one conflict to the next, despite somehow securing a Nobel Peace Prize. He devastated Tigray in a two-year war, began fighting in Amhara, has the Ogaden National Liberation Front considering picking up arms again, and an insurgency in Oromia via the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) has continued unabated since before Abiy Ahmed, with little likelihood of a positive surprise on that front. A second round of peace talks broke down last August in Dar es Salaam and neither side has shown great appetite for picking things up. The December agreement with part of the OLA is a victory for the government and Shimelis Abdisa, Oromia president, was right to say “the winner is the Oromo people” but ultimately the agreement is just that – a partial agreement with a splinter group from the movement led by Jaal Sagni, a former OLA commander. As Jawar Mohammed put it at the time: “while this might be perceived as a setback for the OLA, it should not be overstated as a major development capable of bringing the civil war in Oromia to an end.” Similar past agreements, he said, “have had little lasting impact on the insurgency”. 

As of mid-2024, 4.5 million people were internally displaced in Ethiopia, while Abiy talked up the importance of sea access. The inflammatory rhetoric, in which Abiy believes himself to be divinely entitled to a sliver of land across the Red Sea—rhetoric that Somaliland’s previous leaders have been all too eager to oblige for their own short-term interests—has now turned against Eritrea, as tensions between the two countries continue to heat up. Pro-Abiy trolls are sharing maps of Africa’s Red Sea coast, with a part of Eritrea swallowed up, and are resurrecting conversations about old treaties which gave them concessions in Assab. 

The fractures within the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), however, are the new key detail that, though most analysts remain dovish, might actually be a harbinger for a direct war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two countries fought a brutal war, which the Algerians mediated an end to in the early 2000s, but which then descended into a cold war through proxies across the region until Abiy came to power in 2018. Isaias Afwerki, who hated the TPLF, and Abiy, who needed to weed out the ancien regime appeared to see eye to eye on the need to crush the TPLF and joined forces in 2020 to launch a coordinated attack on Tigray. The peace deal that ended the war in Pretoria did not satisfy the old guard of the TPLF, nor Afwerki, who has somehow found common ground with them against Abiy.

The TPLF is currently split into factions: one led by Getachew Reda, aligned with the Tigray Interim Administration and the Ethiopian government, and the rebels, led by Debretsion Gebremichael. “The fracture in the organisation goes back to the Pretoria Agreement,” says Mohammed Kheir Omer, a researcher and expert on the region. He argues that Abiy’s decision to depose Debretsion Gebremichael in search of a new leader for Tigray laid the groundwork for a power struggle later on, when Debretsion began distancing himself from the factions in the TPLF leadership that supported the deal. In October last year, tensions reached a boiling point, after which Debretsion expelled Getachew from the party, prompting Getachew to similarly dismiss senior Tigrayan commanders who were aligned with the TPLF in a bit of tit-for-tat.

One of Getachew’s senior advisers, Woldeselassie Woldemichael, told The New Humanitarian that “Getachew is consistently on the side of the Pretoria agreement. Debretsion wants to suspend Pretoria and use it as a political tool by placing obstacles to implementation and then saying it’s Getachew’s fault.” 

Debretsion defended his decision to scuttle Pretoria by arguing that Getachew didn’t negotiate but simply accepted orders, framing him as someone who had bowed the knee to Abiy and failed to serve the interests of his people. “The whole terms were dictated by the federal government”, he said. The faction aligned with Debretsion has since captured a series of towns, including Adigrat and Adi-Gudem, two large urban areas and even the regional capital Mekelle’s airport. Reda has called the moves a coup and called for federal support.

Whilst the conflict with the TPLF is one thing, analysts are more broadly concerned that the internal conflict within Tigray could suck in Ethiopia and Eritrea, who find themselves backing one or other of the belligerents. Addis Ababa and Asmara have mobilised their forces, leading one senior Ethiopian general to contend that war now “seems inevitable”. “The nature of preparations for war is such that after a certain stage of the process, it becomes very hard to hold it back,” wrote General Tsadkan for the Africa Report. A senior European and American diplomat similarly issued this stern warning in an article for Foreign Policy: “Amid broader regional and international disorder, the deterioration of the political and security situation in Tigray is dry tinder waiting for a match that could ignite an interstate war between Ethiopia and Eritrea”. 

Payton Knopf, the former American envoy to the Horn of Africa region, and Alexander Rondos, the EU Special Representative for the region, believe that another round of fighting risks drawing in Sudan, which has maintained warm relations with the TPLF dating back to the early 1990s. Tigrayan fighters, they say, are also fighting alongside the Sudanese army against the RSF. “The blast radius of a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea provoked by the collapse of the Pretoria Agreement could consume northeast Africa and the geopolitically vital Red Sea as well,” say Rondos and Knopf. 

The picture across the region isn’t pretty, and without a new path forward, a new horizon alongside peace, whether the guns fall silent again for a little while won’t ultimately matter. Our political systems can’t be held hostage to feuding fools, where the function of government is to divvy up the spoils, so they don’t go back to shooting each other. It is also very important that people don’t follow these politicians and sacralise their “monuments of false hope”, as Nuruddin Farah described the Siad Barre regime’s attempt to lay claim to various legacies that empowered and legitimised his regime. The stories they tell us about the world don’t necessarily always cohere well with reality.  

The generation of politicians leading the region now are inepter their than their predecessors, and it is young people who are better educated and so it is crucial that we be bold enough to think differently and enrich our thoughts with the best ideas we can find. It will be a band-aid if, in a decade’s time, incompetent clan deputies still staff Somalia’s parliament, if Ethiopia remains entangled in a web of complex grudges between leaders all too willing to sacrifice young men and women in pursuit of revenge, or conquerors like Kagame are still able to bully their neighbours and loot their minerals. Eventually, that evergreen remark about conflict in East Africa will ring true once more and we’ll all be here again. It isn’t enough to stop the slide. We need a vision for what the future can offer beyond the politics of chauvinism and scarcity.