ETHIOPIA’S LEADER WON A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR MAKING PEACE WITH ERITREA. IS WAR NEXT?
By Shizza Umer
In 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending two decades of hostility with neighbouring Eritrea. Seven years later, the two countries he brought together are massing forces against each other, and the region between them is on fire again, seven years after the prize that was meant to seal the peace.
A peace prize, then a war
Ethiopia has accused Eritrean troops of crossing its northern border and pushing as far as 60 kilometres into its territory, calling it an “all-out invasion.” Eritrea denies it, and the full extent of the alleged incursion has not been independently verified. The accusation comes as fighting resumes in Tigray, the region left in ruins by the 2020 to 2022 war, with Ethiopian forces retaking the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, in early October.
“We are back to square one”
For the people who survived the last war, the fear is immediate. “I feel very heartbroken knowing that Tigray has gone back to full-scale war,” said Berihu, a 32-year-old rickshaw driver in Shire. In Mekelle, a 37-year-old resident named Goitom described lying awake to gunfire without knowing what was happening. “It feels like we are back to square one,” he said. In the capital, a student named Bisrat put the dread in five words: “I fear seeing another Sudan.”
A camp of survivors, hit again
Some who fled the last war have already been caught by this one. On 4 October, a reported drone strike hit a displacement camp at Sheraro, home to thousands of people uprooted by the earlier fighting. At least eight were killed, including a child, and a witness described a mother, her four children and a grandson among the dead. Responsibility for the strike has not been established, and journalists are largely barred from the area, so the true toll may never be known.
The allies who fell out
The bitter irony is that Ethiopia and Eritrea fought the last war on the same side, against Tigrayan forces. But when Ethiopia signed the November 2022 Pretoria peace agreement that ended the fighting, Eritrea was left outside the deal. A war Eritrea helped wage was closed by an agreement it never signed, and its forces never fully withdrew.
Why the sea divides them
Beneath the collapse lies one hard dispute: the sea. Landlocked Ethiopia wants secure access to the Red Sea, and Abiy has vowed his country will “work diligently” to win an outlet. Eritrea reads that as a threat to its own coastline, above all the strategic port of Assab, and treats its larger neighbour’s ambition as a matter of survival.
The most closed country on earth
Eritrea is also one of the most sealed societies in the world. It has held no national election since independence in 1993, and the same president, Isaias Afwerki, has ruled for all 33 years since. It ranks last on earth for press freedom, two years running, and forces its citizens into open-ended national service that can stretch for decades. The soldiers now accused of crossing into Ethiopia come from that system, and almost no independent account of what they are doing escapes.
How many died last time
No one agrees how many people the last war killed. The African Union’s own mediator, Olusegun Obasanjo, estimated as many as 600,000 dead from combat, famine and the collapse of Tigray’s health system. Independent researchers have put the figure far lower. The gap is vast because the region was sealed off while people were dying, and that blackout is exactly why the stakes now are so hard to measure, and so frightening.
The open question is whether diplomacy can hold the line before a renewed Tigray conflict hardens into a direct war between two countries whose peace once won the world’s highest prize.
By Shizza Umer
Sources
Al Jazeera, 9 October 2026 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/9/ethiopia-and-eritrea-accuse-one-another-of-launching-war
Al Jazeera, 5 October 2026 (Mekelle, resident voices) https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/10/5/ethiopias-forces-retake-mekelle-amid-renewed-tigray-fighting
Reuters, 9 October 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-says-it-must-defend-itself-against-eritreas-all-out-invasion-2026-10-09/
Associated Press, 10 October 2026 https://apnews.com/article/9386a16a06e537a29ffe2de273267c8b
AFP via Ahram Online, Sheraro displacement camp https://english.ahram.org.eg/newscontent/2/10/578228/world/africa/drone-at-idp-camp-in-ethiopia%3Bs-tigray-kills-eight.aspx
The East African, Pretoria peace agreement https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/rest-of-africa/ethiopia-tigray-sign-deal-to-cease-hostilities-4006688
The National, Obasanjo’s mortality estimate https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/africa/2023/01/16/tigray-death-toll-could-be-as-high-as-600000-african-union-envoy-says/
Reporters Without Borders, Eritrea https://rsf.org/en/country/eritrea
Human Rights Watch, Eritrea https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/eritrea
