Ethiopia is accustomed to distinction. The country is one of only two in Africa never to have been colonized by Europeans, boasts the hottest inhabited place on Earth, and was the home of the earliest known human ancestor.
But there’s one superlative Ethiopia would rather not lay claim to. The country of 132 million people is the world’s most populous landlocked nation.
In recent weeks, this “geographical prison,” as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed dubbed it, has pushed Ethiopia dangerously close to violent conflict with its coastal neighbor Eritrea. Many Ethiopians want to access a slice of Eritrea’s sprawling coast – perhaps Assab, an underutilized southern port city that was once administered by Ethiopia. Eritreans, naturally, are opposed. (As of press time, there has been no direct fighting.)
Why We Wrote This
Many landlocked Ethiopians want a slice of their neighbor’s extensive coastline. Both sides have troops at the border. Is another conflict inevitable?
Both sides have amassed troops along their shared border, and at a military parade in February, Ethiopian soldiers stood at attention below a massive display in Amharic reading, “Whether they like it or not, we will not be landlocked.”
Why is conflict brewing again between Ethiopia and Eritrea?
There are many factors, but a major one is that Ethiopia’s “right” to a coastline is a belief that unites people in an otherwise deeply fractured country, explains Yohannes Gedamu, a political scientist at Georgia Gwinnett College who studies Ethiopia.
At the moment, that kind of consensus is in short supply for Mr. Abiy’s government. His administration is facing rebellions in Ethiopia’s two most populous states – Oromia and Amhara – while also dealing with an unresolved civil war in the northern state of Tigray.
In that context, Mr. Abiy “needs a pan-Ethiopian narrative,” Dr. Gedamu explains, and he has found one in the pursuit of a port.
“Even many people who very much politically oppose Abiy Ahmed are excited about this prospect of Ethiopia having access to the sea,” he says.
Why is the prospect of coastal access attractive to Ethiopia?
For one thing, not having a coastline makes trade much more expensive and precarious for Ethiopia. Today, its trade mostly passes through tiny Djibouti, which Addis Ababa pays about $1.5 billion annually for port access.
Ethiopia’s government also says that the lack of a coastline keeps it from acting as a regional bulwark against instability in the Red Sea, one of the world’s most pivotal – and volatile – shipping corridors.
In this context, having a port is “not a matter of luxury,” Mr. Abiy explained in 2023, but “existential.”
The issue is also emotional. For centuries, Eritrea formed the coastal perimeter of the Ethiopian Empire. Then, in the 1890s, Ethiopia lost the territory to another empire seeking a toehold in the Red Sea: Italy.
After World War II, the United Nations made Eritrea an autonomous province under the rule of the Ethiopian king. But when Addis Ababa seized total control, Eritreans fought back. After a grueling three-decade civil war, Eritrea became independent in 1993.
That left Ethiopia once again without a coast. And when the two countries plunged into another war in the late 1990s, Ethiopia lost access to Eritrea’s ports entirely.
Today, the port city of Assab sits rusting and largely disused just 40 miles from the Ethiopian border, and many Ethiopians are convinced that ceding their entire coastline was a grave error.
“That history was yesterday’s mistake,” said Mr. Abiy in a speech last September. “Tomorrow, it will be corrected.”
Could Ethiopia get the coastal access it wants without going to war?
It’s hard to say, but one thing is clear: A war would be extraordinarily costly for both countries.
Between 2020 and 2022, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought together to extinguish a rebellion in Tigray. They won, but as many as 600,000 people died in what The New York Times termed “one of the world’s bloodiest contemporary conflicts.”
Ethiopians and Eritreans “are the last people who want to go to war,” Dr. Gedamu says. “They know exactly how much it costs.”
Their governments, however, may have other ideas. Both Eritrea and the government of Tigray felt sidelined by the negotiations ending the war there. Addis Ababa now says the Eritrean administration in Asmara is giving clandestine support to rebels in Tigray and other regions of Ethiopia, an accusation Eritrea denies.
Even if no side deliberately sets out to start a war, “the danger is that a sudden move by any side could escalate at high speed,” explained the International Crisis Group in a recent brief.
Meanwhile, while Mr. Abiy reiterated recently that his government has “no intention of invading or attacking others,” his actions have been less clear.
Take the “we will not be landlocked” message displayed at the military parade in February.
On one side of the text was a beaming portrait of Mr. Abiy. On the other was an Ethiopian soldier jump-kicking through a wall. Beyond the splintered barrier floated a massive ship with two words emblazoned on its hull: “Assab Ethiopia.”
