Euroviews. Rising Somalia-Ethiopia tensions could plunge the Horn of Africa into chaos

As the world welcomes the arrival of a new year and eyes are focused on the war in Gaza, tension continues to escalate in the Horn of Africa — a region of immense political instability. 

This comes following Somalia’s cancellation on 6 January of a pact which Ethiopia signed five days earlier with Somalia’s breakaway territory of Somaliland. 

The agreement would grant landlocked Ethiopia access to the Somaliland port in the Gulf of Aden to establish a marine force base that aims at strengthening political, economic and security ties between them. 

Somaliland, which seceded from Somalia in 1991, borders the Red Sea — a security hotspot and a strategic maritime corridor not just for African and Arab Gulf states, but also for world powers such as the United States, China, and Russia. 

The port agreement will grant Addis Ababa access to Red Sea shipping lanes through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait between Djibouti (in the Horn of Africa) and Yemen (in the Middle East), and which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The controversial deal has received condemnation from other Red Sea neighbours, including Egypt and Eritrea, which fear a possible naval access to the Red Sea which Ethiopia lost the right to use following Eritrea’s secession in 1993. 

Ethiopia has instead been utilising the port in neighbouring Djibouti for channelling the vast majority of its imports and exports in return for generous financial returns. 

There is also fear that the agreement could mount tension among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile.

Regrettably, the West’s perception of Horn of Africa countries is weak with little attention currently paid to the rising concern among Africans that