Aviation accidents in the Congo, escalating tensions in Ethiopia, and African demands for Security Council reform

At least 14 people, including two senior military officials, were killed in a plane crash, the Congolese army said on Friday.

The two military officials are Lieutenant-General Mutombo Katalai Tendi, President of the Military Tribunal, and Lieutenant-General Bakomi Lekulia, Auditor-General of the Armed Forces.

“In addition to the two generals, 12 members of the delegation and the plane’s crew also lost their lives in this accident,” Congolese army spokesman, Major General Ifumi Ikeng, said in a statement.

The plane was returning to the capital, Kinshasa, from the city of Kikwit, southwestern Congo, when it suffered a technical malfunction and crashed in Kinji, where all those on board died, according to local officials.

Ekeng said that an investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the accident.

The Congolese army has been fighting dozens of rebel groups, including the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, in the east of the country since last year, after a series of attacks led to the rebel groups seizing major cities.

After months of skirmishes, the Tigray Liberation Front is heading into a new chapter of battles with the federal government in Ethiopia, which was strengthened by the joining of other forces by launching an armed coalition to overthrow the government, amid fears of the expansion of the scope of the fighting.

What is happening brings to mind the battles of 2020 between the two sides, which witnessed the killing of thousands and ended after mediations that culminated in the “Pretoria Agreement” in 2022, and since then that period has not been without accusations of violating the agreement from both sides.

An Ethiopian parliamentarian told Asharq Al-Awsat that the government will not repeat the scenario of the previous war, and the current unrest will not lead to a broader wave of clashes, and the battles will be resolved in a short period.

An Ethiopian analyst agreed with him, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, stressing that the “Tigray Front,” despite joining an armed coalition a few days ago, has internal rifts and a lack of equipment and weapons and is only stationed in 3 of the 12 regions in the region, ruling out the expansion of the war.

The conflict is expanding

On Friday, areas in northern Ethiopia witnessed an outage in internet service, according to the NetBlocks website, which specializes in monitoring network disturbances, as battles intensified between the federal government and the Tigray Liberation Front, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.

The “Tigray forces” seized 3 airports in the region, and launched attacks in the Afar and Amhara regions in cooperation with their allies there this week, in the most dangerous escalation since the devastating war that took place between 2020 and 2022 against the federal government forces.

The people fear a repeat of the scenario of communications outages and the blockade of supplies imposed by the federal government on the Tigray region during the recent civil war (2020-2022), which killed nearly 600,000 people.

This scenario also bears a resemblance this time to the “Tigray Liberation Front” repeating its strategy in the 2020 war, and its advance south through the Amhara region towards the capital, Addis Ababa, amid a possible goal of the attack in the Afar region, which is to cut off the supply lines coming from Djibouti, through which the vast majority of Ethiopia’s international trade shipments pass, including fuel.

The Front has already launched attacks on the Amhara and Afar regions, confirming that it is responding to attacks launched by federal forces.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, Ethiopian parliamentarian Mohamed Nour Ahmed believes that the recent military developments in the Tigray region “will not return the country to the tragedy of the 2020 war, as a result of the decline in the capabilities of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and its loss of its popular incubator.” Where the people of the region are forcibly led into fighting amid popular dissatisfaction as a result of the repercussions of previous wars, the effects of which citizens have not yet avoided.”

The analyst on Ethiopian affairs, Abdul Shakur Abdul Samad, does not disagree with him, stressing that “what is being raised in the media regarding military developments in the Tigray region involves exaggeration and exaggerations that are contrary to reality,” noting that the field confrontations “are currently limited to only 3 fronts out of 12 fronts in the region, and what is happening is media employment and psychological warfare aimed at pressure and nothing more.”

A few days ago, 7 groups opposed to the federal government in different regions of the country, including the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the Fano militia in Amhara, and the Oromo Liberation Army, announced an alliance aimed at overthrowing the ruling authority in Addis Ababa.

The Tigray People's Liberation Front previously took power in 1991 and ruled Ethiopia for three decades before Abiy Ahmed marginalized it when he assumed the prime ministership in 2018, which contributed to the outbreak of civil war.

Although the “Pretoria Peace Agreement” in 2022 ended that war and established a cautious calm, the clashes renewed in late 2025. The federal government at that time launched drone strikes on Tigray and mobilized its forces on the borders of the region.

Fears are increasing that the conflict in Ethiopia will turn into a broader regional conflict, at a time when the “Tigray Liberation Front” enjoys support from Eritrea, which observers say is afraid of Ethiopia’s invasion of its lands with the aim of obtaining access to the Red Sea.

Despite this, Ethiopian parliamentarian Mohamed Nour Ahmed believes that the alliances between opposition factions “will be fragile and will deepen their isolation and cause them to lose any trust in the Ethiopian street,” stressing that the central government headed by Abiy Ahmed “is today more powerful and superior than ever before, thanks to the comprehensive development and modernization of the military arsenal with modern techniques and technology, compared to the beginning of the crisis in which he assumed power amid challenges and limited equipment.”

The Ethiopian parliamentarian asserts that “the ongoing confrontations will not go beyond limited rounds that will be resolved within a short period, and then Ethiopia will return to the path of stability and security.”

Abdel Samad ruled out the extension of the confrontations or the outbreak of a comprehensive war, based on the state of civil and military division that the Tigray People's Liberation Front is suffering from and the defection of its prominent field leaders, as well as the severe shortage of equipment and weapons compared to its situation in previous confrontations.

Crises

While about a million people are still displaced in the Tigray region, the situation with the new confrontations appears difficult, with the region’s residents rushing since Thursday to stock up on food, cash and basic goods. Samuel Gebre Selassie (37 years old), who works in a spice shop in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, told Agence France-Presse: “There are deep fears about the possibility of interruption of banking services, communications networks, electricity and supplies of basic goods again.”

Therefore, Ethiopian parliamentarian Mohamed Nour Ahmed confirms that the new alliances have no popular support and will quickly lose their influence.

Abdel Samad stressed that the declared alliances between a mere structure that was born dead do not reflect any real weight on the ground in light of these popular crises, stressing that the expected developments will not go beyond limited and limited security breaches or challenges, which may lead to some routine political and security consequences, without posing a threat beyond this scope.

African leaders strongly raised demands for reform of the UN Security Council during the sessions of the UN General Assembly, held two days ago in New York City, by calling for the African continent to obtain two permanent seats in the Council with veto power. These demands face major challenges.

In their speeches before the General Assembly, African leaders stressed that the continent, which represents a quarter of the members of the United Nations, suffers from “exclusion,” considering that the continuation of this situation “weakens the legitimacy of the United Nations and contradicts the principle of sovereign equality.”

African discourse

Kenya's President William Ruto's speech was the strongest and most forceful, when he said that "every nation is sovereign and equal under the Charter of the United Nations." However, on the most serious issues of war and peace, 5 countries have permanent authority that the other 188 countries do not possess.”

Ruto explained that “Africa includes 54 member states, that is, more than a quarter of this Assembly, and yet it does not have a permanent voice in the body entrusted with the primary responsibility for international peace and security,” noting that Africa is often the subject of Security Council resolutions, “but it is permanently excluded from the discussion.”

While the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, affirmed that “Africa is home to 1.5 billion people, that is, more than 18 percent of humanity, and constitutes the largest regional voting bloc in this General Assembly. However, it still does not have a single permanent seat in the Security Council, and this is completely unacceptable.”

Mahama stressed: “Africa must be given permanent representation in the Security Council, with full rights and responsibilities,” stressing that “reforming the Security Council is not a blessing to Africa; Rather, it is imperative for the legitimacy, credibility and survival of the United Nations.”

For his part, Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said, in a speech delivered by his deputy before the United Nations General Assembly, that “the world in 2026 cannot remain captive to the distribution of power that existed in 1945. Africa cannot continue to fill the agenda of the Security Council and remain absent from its permanent membership.”

The President of Nigeria called for Africa to obtain two permanent seats in the UN Security Council, with veto power, in addition to 5 non-permanent seats.

The first obstacle

The African narrative relies on the fact that the UN Security Council was established in 1945 in the wake of World War II, when Africa was under Western colonialism. Whereas, out of the 51 founding members of the United Nations, there were only 4 African countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa. In this context, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said that this situation is “unjust and indefensible.”

The reform demands require an amendment to the United Nations Charter, and this requires the approval of two-thirds of the General Assembly, and the approval of all five permanent members, according to Article 108 of the Charter, and here lies the major obstacle.

The United States supports granting Africa two permanent seats in the Security Council, without the right of veto, a position rejected by African countries. Because in her view, it establishes a new hierarchy and grants her “second-class membership.”

As for Russia and China, they show rhetorical sympathy with the “Global South,” but they issued a clear warning against opening the Charter, due to fears of any step that might weaken their influence or might open the door for competitors, such as India and Japan, to enter the Security Council. While France and Britain show a degree of relative openness, but with a lot of caution.

Repair models

Amid African pressure, new reform models are emerging, including what is proposed by the “Group of Four,” which includes Germany, Brazil, India, and Japan, which is pressing to obtain permanent seats for itself, with Africa obtaining two permanent seats.

As for the “Unite for Consensus” group, it explicitly opposes granting any new permanent seats, and prefers expansion of non-permanent seats only, in light of warnings that expanding the Security Council to 26 members may increase legitimacy, but reduce the effectiveness and speed of decision-making, especially in crises.

Hence the current geopolitical context emerges; As the tension between the United States and China, the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, make the major powers less willing to give up the levers of control, and reform may even seem a “luxury” in times of severe polarization.

Internal conflict

While African leaders agree, in their speeches, on the demand of reforming the Security Council and granting the continent two permanent seats, they do not have a clear mechanism to determine which countries will occupy these two seats, in light of the strong competition between the centers of power on the continent.

Competition is heating up between countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Ethiopia, which further complicates the African situation, as it appears that Security Council reform may open the door to internal conflicts on the continent, and bring back to the forefront a history of bloody regional wars.

Although there is an agreement that stipulates that the African Union is the body that will choose the continent’s representatives in the Security Council, it does not specify a clear mechanism for that, which makes resolving the issue difficult. This competition is described as a “silent battle,” which Africans postpone engaging in for fear that it will weaken their position in the United Nations.