Troops from Eritrea have apparently invaded Ethiopia

Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of ​​supporting rebels in Tigray who have allied with insurgents from other regions. The government in Addis Ababa moved troops into Tigray at the weekend to push back the rebels and took control of Tigray's regional capital Mekelle. This increased fears that Ethiopia might plan an attack on Eritrea to gain access to the Red Sea.

Eritrea's information minister accused Ethiopia of using false accusations to justify a war of aggression against his country. According to analyst Birru, Eritrea wants to prevent a possible advance by Ethiopian troops into its own territory. By supporting the rebels, Eritrea also wants to create a buffer zone on its own border, said Birru.

From 2020 to 2022, both countries fought together against rebels from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which had previously dominated Ethiopian politics for decades. It is estimated that several hundred thousand people died in the civil war. All sides were accused of serious human rights violations and war crimes.

Dispute over access to the sea – millions of people in the border area

Since then, relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have deteriorated significantly. A key point of contention is Ethiopia's long-standing desire for its own access to the Red Sea. Since Eritrea's independence, Ethiopia has been a landlocked country, with almost all of its maritime trade passing through neighboring Djibouti.

According to the UN, Ethiopia has around 139 million inhabitants. Around six million people live in the Tigray region, including hundreds of thousands of displaced people, many of whom do not have sufficient access to food and medical care. The neighboring country Eritrea has around 3.7 million inhabitants. The bitterly poor, largely isolated state has been ruled authoritarianly by President Isaias Afwerki since its independence in 1993.