Tensions are soaring in East Africa as neighbors Ethiopia and Somalia dispute a maritime pact.
In the latest, Addis Ababa has warned its rivals there would be severe retaliation if any country attempted to invade Ethiopia.
On September 8, in a televised address marking Ethiopia’s sovereignty day, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, “Anyone intending to invade Ethiopia should not only think just once but 10 times because Ethiopians know how to defend themselves,’’ adding that any “attack would be repelled.”
Abiy might not have directed his comments to any country in particular, but Ethiopia is locked in a dispute with Somalia and Egypt.
With Somalia, the tensions center on a port deal that landlocked Ethiopia signed in January with Somalia’s breakaway region Somaliland.
It’s a deal that Somalia has described as an ‘’act of aggression.’’
The tensions with Egypt are over a long-running dispute about a large dam that Addis Ababa built on a tributary of the Nile River.
Ethiopia’s chief of general staff of the National Defense Force, Birhanu Jula, accused an “old enemy” regarding an old problem. On September 8, while attending the 47th anniversary of the Eastern Command in Somali regions, he said:
“Egypt made us landlocked by causing Eritrea to secede from Ethiopia.’’
That is false.
Egypt had nothing to do with Eritrea seceding from Ethiopia.
On August 28, “Egypt delivered its first military aid to Somalia in over four decades, a move that was likely to deepen strains between the two countries and Ethiopia,” Reuters reported.
Cairo’s aid included weapons and ammunition. It will also send 5,000 troops next year to join the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, which will take over from the AU Transition Mission in Somalia or ATMIS, and another 5,000 to be deployed separately.
Somalia had turned to Egypt for help protecting its waters after Ethiopia entered a maritime deal with its breakaway region, Somaliland, which Somalia considers part of its territory.
In the deal, Somaliland agreed to give Ethiopia access to its port and lease section of its coast land to build a naval base for 99 years. In exchange, Ethiopia promised to be the first country to recognize Somaliland, which seceded from Somalia in 1991.
In an exclusive interview with VOA Somali and Horn of Africa services, Richard Riley, the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia, said the U.S., which is the single largest donor to Somalia, is aware of the maritime deal and is working to find ‘’a diplomatic resolution to this current situation.’’
“We do not recognize it [maritime deal] and are trying to solve it through diplomatic channels,” Riley said.
He also said the U.S. would extend full support to any mission whose objective was to make Somalia peaceful.
Eritrea’s journey to independence, including the mobilization of a national liberation movement and a referendum observed by the U.N., entails a brutal 30-year war that started in 1961.
Eritrea became independent in 1993, therefore leaving Ethiopia landlocked. Since then, it has been involved in conflict with its neighbors, primarily Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan. More recently, Somalia also has become embroiled in the dispute, as Ethiopia seeks to gain access to the Red Sea.
Ethiopia has reignited a decade-long-running dispute with Egypt over Addis Ababa’s construction of a vast hydro dam on a tributary of the Nile River, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD.
On August 25, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy posted on X regarding the start of the fifth stage of the first filling of the GERD reservoir and the operation of the third and fourth turbines of the GERD.
In protest, Egypt said it had exhausted all ways possible to stop the completion and filling of the dam, and it “stands ready to exercise its right to defend and protect the rights and interests of the Egyptian people, per the U.N. Charter,” according to a letter written on September 1 to the U.N. by Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Badr Abdel.
Egypt and Sudan consider the dam a serious threat to their vital water supplies.
On November 7 of last year, Abiy told a group of businesspeople that Ethiopia had a right to access the Red Sea, and that “it would do so by force or peace.”
