Ethiopia and Eritrea sever ties as Tigray war escalation threatens to pull in Egypt

Ethiopia and Eritrea severed diplomatic relations on Thursday after Addis Ababa ordered the closure of its embassy in Asmara and expelled ten Eritrean diplomats, a rupture that came hours after explosions were heard near Ethiopia's military headquarters in the capital. The measures mark the sharpest deterioration yet in relations between the two Horn of Africa neighbours since renewed fighting erupted across northern Ethiopia a week earlier, and they raised fears in Addis Ababa, Asmara and Cairo that a domestic rebellion against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government could widen into a regional war.

Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had "decided to close its Embassy in Asmara, Eritrea, in response to Eritrea's direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence against Ethiopia," and declared ten unnamed Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa persona non grata for activities it said threatened national security, ordering them to leave within 48 hours. It did not identify the diplomats or detail the alleged activities.

Eritrea's government answered within hours. "Eritrea has no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails," its foreign ministry said, according to Eritrean officials who briefed Reuters. Eritrea's Information Minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, told the BBC's Tigrinya service that Addis Ababa was blaming neighbouring states to deflect from problems of its own making.

"Eritrea has no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails."

Explosions in the capital

The diplomatic break came hours after residents in Addis Ababa reported hearing powerful blasts overnight, including near the headquarters of the Ethiopian National Defence Force. Three diplomatic sources confirmed the explosions to Reuters, though witnesses said they saw no visible damage near the base. A source linked to the opposition alliance fighting Ethiopian federal forces said it had carried out several drone strikes on the capital, including some aimed at the military headquarters; if confirmed, it would be the first known drone attack by anti-government forces on Addis Ababa, which sits hundreds of kilometres from the front lines in Tigray, Amhara and Afar.

Ethiopia separately declared an Egyptian diplomat persona non grata and gave him 48 hours to leave the country, according to state media; Cairo responded by expelling an Ethiopian embassy counsellor on the same terms. Egypt's foreign ministry spokesperson, Nader Zaki, told Reuters the move was justified, saying "reciprocity is the currency of diplomacy." An Egyptian official separately described Ethiopia's action as "unfortunate" and unjustified.

How the war reignited

The clashes that triggered this week's diplomatic collapse began roughly a week earlier, when forces loyal to the federal government clashed with a newly formed opposition alliance in Ethiopia's north. More than 50 people have been killed since the fighting resumed, and a doctor in the town of Alamata told the BBC that at least 52 civilians died there during three days of intense combat. A pro-government militia commander said it had seized the town of Milazat, roughly 20km from Mekelle, the Tigray regional capital, though the BBC said it could not independently verify the claim; Ethiopia's government has not commented publicly on the status of the front line.

The opposition side, called the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, was formed on 21 September by seven armed movements, some of which fought on opposite sides of Ethiopia's 2020-2022 civil war. Its stated aim is to remove Abiy's government from power. Its members are:

• The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)
• The Amhara Fano National Movement
• The Oromo Liberation Army
• The Ogaden National Liberation Front
• The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front
• The Benishangul Peoples' Liberation Movement
• The Gumuz Peoples' Democratic Movement

Addis Ababa accuses Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the alliance; all three governments deny it. A pro-government militia commander told the BBC that Eritrean soldiers had joined the fighting on the Tigray front, a claim the broadcaster has not verified, and the administrator of Ethiopia's northern Afar region told Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Afar to support the offensive there. Eritrea's information minister denied any involvement before ties were severed.

The animosity has deep roots. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a 1998-2000 border war that killed an estimated 80,000 people, and relations stayed frozen until 2018, when Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki reopened their shared border in a rapprochement that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. The two militaries later fought side by side against the TPLF in the 2020-2022 Tigray war, but Eritrea was not a party to the Pretoria peace agreement that ended it in November 2022 — a deal the African Union estimates cost roughly 600,000 lives — and relations soured again soon after. Ethiopia, landlocked since Eritrea's 1993 independence, has since pressed for direct access to the Red Sea, and Asmara has accused Abiy's government of coveting its port of Assab by force.

A region bracing for disruption

The renewed fighting has already reached beyond Tigray. The TPLF and allied forces have also engaged Ethiopian troops in Afar, which carries Ethiopia's main transport corridor to the Ethiopian-Djiboutian coast, and tens of thousands of people are estimated to have fled their homes there. Fighting has additionally disrupted travel in Lalibela, the Ethiopian town famed for its medieval rock-hewn churches, stranding tourists as the violence spread to neighbouring areas. Phone and internet connections into Tigray have been cut, and the BBC said it was unable to report from the region or determine who was responsible for the blackout.

The United Nations has also warned that the fighting is hampering aid delivery. A spokesman for the Secretary-General said drone activity and air strikes were putting civilians, infrastructure and aid operations at risk, and that insecurity and road closures were restricting the movement of humanitarian workers and supplies. The UN's concern echoes an earlier statement from the Secretary-General's office warning of the risk of "a return to a wider conflict" in the region and urging full implementation of the 2022 ceasefire agreement.

Calls for restraint

The African Union Commission, whose headquarters sit in Addis Ababa, issued a statement saying it was "closely following with concern the heightened tensions between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt" and called on all three states to "exercise maximum restraint and refrain from actions or statements that could further escalate tensions." The Commission said it stood ready, "in consultation with the countries concerned, to support efforts towards de-escalation, dialogue and the peaceful resolution of differences," urging the parties to rely on established diplomatic channels and peaceful dialogue rather than further retaliatory steps.

The AU had already appealed for calm once this year, when its Commission chairperson, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, called for maximum restraint over an earlier flare-up and urged the federal government and the TPLF to preserve the gains of the 2022 ceasefire. Spokespeople for Abiy's office, the federal government, the Ethiopian National Defence Force and the TPLF did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters on Thursday's events.

What happens next

The 48-hour windows given to the expelled Eritrean and Egyptian diplomats run out this weekend, closing off one of the last remaining formal channels between the governments even as the African Union urges all sides back to the table. On the ground, pro-government forces say they are pressing toward Mekelle from the south, while the opposition alliance's claimed strikes on Addis Ababa — if verified — would represent a significant escalation of the conflict's geographic reach. With phone and internet links into Tigray severed, independent verification of battlefield claims from either side remains difficult, and diplomats in the region say the coming days will determine whether the rupture between Ethiopia and Eritrea settles into a tense standoff or widens into the kind of broader confrontation the African Union is trying to head off.