Africa’s Horn’s in a (t)horny spot.

In the latest example of complex politics of the Horn of Africa spilling over into Western lands, a shocking series of violent riots erupted in The Hague, Netherlands, as opposing Eritrean factions fought running battles on the Dutch streets, injuring six police officers and leading to the arrest of 13 suspects. They’re not the first. Around 150 people were also hurt in clashes in Tel Aviv similarly sparked by rival Eritrean factions last year. The major suspect in the clashes is Eritrean opposition faction Brigade Nhamedu, rumoured to receive funding and support from Abiy Ahmed’s regime in Ethiopia, Eritrea’s former master until the latter gained independence in 1991.

As the world watched the historically groundbreaking naval blockade enacted by the Houthi movement, which was recently revealed to have shot down another American drone, heavily damaged a British transport ship, and employed a drone submarine, inter and intra-state conflicts of even greater consequence in the region have been slipping by more or less unnoticed. Beyond Ethiopia’s move for Somaliland, this concerns Egypt’s precarious stability.

Let’s try and simplify to understand the major drivers of conflict here.

The region is currently in a maelstrom. For the most part, Western states appear to be playing an observer role, as the dynamics of the region call for the emergence of a hegemonic player that can function as a proxy for Western, Gulf, and international interests. The only clear power is Ethiopia, with sufficient demographic size, economic capacity, military prowess and political ambition to control the Horn region.

Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed achieved a formidable coup de main in receiving an area in Somaliland to be used as a port for military and civilian use in late 2023, ostensibly in return for the de-facto country’s recognition. Ethiopia’s primary sea ports were formerly in Eritrean Assab, but these were lost when Eritrea achieved independence in 1991. Since then, Ethiopia has relied on costly imports from Djibouti for most of its international trade. If Ethiopia constructs a capable port and a Western-tech-built navy thanks to Gulf (primarily, UAE) financing, it could effectively function as a counterbalancing naval power to the Yemen-based Houthis.

While onlookers, including myself, were surprised at Abiy’s move towards Somaliland – since most expected some type of conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea over the historically significant Assab port – the resolution has been anything but uncontroversial.  Somalia’s government has since been sabre-rattling against Ethiopia – but it’s been more of a whimper than a growl. Turkey’s recent agreement with Somalia – presented by the latter’s government as a strong backing of its position- only consists of a maritime security agreement against regional piracy that primarily allows Turkey to build additional naval power in the region.

Egypt’s support for Somalia against Ethiopia, meanwhile, has less to do with its interest in a united Somalia – whose federalised and ineffective governance guaranteed Somaliland’s independence since the ’90s, and far more to do with Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile tributary.

Despite a series of talks between Egypt and Ethiopia to ensure Egyptian water supplies from the Nile (a crucial lifeline for the Egyptian state), they appear to have gone nowhere. Egypt considers the GERD an existential threat, raising the spectre of conflict between the two nations, and recurs to historical legal rights over upstream projects in the Nile River as a basis for its concerns. Ethiopia, meanwhile, is continuing to fill the dam over the next two to three years.

Egypt, meanwhile, is facing a host of internal problems on top of this external threat – the consequences of which are far-reaching and potentially catastrophic. The country has been piling on huge sums of debt from the IMF and other international lenders as it seeks to fund its massive construction projects of the New Delta and New Administrative Capital. Furthermore, the country has suffered from the Russo-Ukrainian war, being the world’s largest importer of wheat, triggering substantial inflation of around 30%. The staggering decline in revenues from the Suez Canal has only exacerbated this crisis. This has forced the Egyptian government to begin burning through foreign reserves and devaluing its currency to make ends meet. Farrouk Soussa, an economist at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg that Egypt needs financing of over $25bn over the next four years. Despite failing to adhere to the conditions of previous IMF loans, the largest being a $12bn loan in 2016, the country’s strategic significance means it’s largely expected to receive more international financing.

But this won’t come close to solving Egypt’s problems. Chief among them is record demographic growth, which has seen its population balloon to 109m people in a country whose habitable areas are effectively the size of Belgium,  alongside a slowing economy. It’s also troubled by Israel’s push against the Rafah border in Gaza. While Egypt has threatened to rip up the Camp David Accords and claimed such a move by Israel would be a “red line”, observers express scepticism of these claims. Its necessity for Western loans means it would be nigh-impossible for Egypt to rip up this guarantee of American backing. On the other hand, Egypt’s largely conservative population is widely anti-Israel, and would be outraged by any tacit Egyptian backing of an Israeli offensive that could push Palestinian migrants into Egyptian-controlled Sinai. Its Muslim Brotherhood opposition, meanwhile, is being reinforced daily with widespread stories about the Egyptian Army’s profiteering from Al-Sisi’s megaprojects. Typical anti-semitic tensions, naturally, are becoming widespread – notably, the rumour that Al-Sisi’s mother is Jewish.

While Western observers are perched on the sidelines to monitor the outcome of Ethiopian attempts at regional dominance, and Gulf players, particularly the UAE, push hard to bring their favoured party (Ethiopia) to the fore, they may yet be surprised by a wave of instability affecting the region’s most populous state – Egypt. Even when the country receives the IMF loans and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict winds down, its consistent need for more funding, dragging economy, and increasing tensions with Ethiopia are making Al-Sisi’s position increasingly perilous.

Watch this space.