Ethiopia and Eritrea: War, Peace, and Access to the Red Sea

Since 1993, relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have carried a tension created by Eritrean independence itself: Eritrea gained sovereignty, while Ethiopia lost direct access to the sea. Eritrean independence reshaped the bilateral relationship by turning a sovereignty dispute into a permanent problem of sea access for Ethiopia. The new Eritrean state came to control the Red Sea coast, including Assab and Massawa, port cities with a central place in Ethiopia’s commercial history. Ethiopia, in turn, came to depend on ports in neighboring countries for its foreign trade and for the logistics behind its regional position.

This geography helps explain why the two countries have moved from war and frozen hostility to public rapprochement and then back toward renewed distrust. The small border locality of Badme became the symbol of the 1998–2000 war, but the conflict did not emerge only from that territorial dispute. Eritrea tries to protect the sovereignty won after decades of war, while Ethiopia tries to reduce its logistical dependence on Djibouti. The legacy of the conflict in Tigray and the fragility of the diplomatic mechanisms created after the 2018 peace complete that picture.

Summary

• Eritrea was first an Italian colony and later came under British administration. It was federated with Ethiopia in 1952, then annexed by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in 1962. The annexation strengthened the armed struggle that led to Eritrean independence in 1993.
• With Eritrea’s independence, Ethiopia lost direct access to the Red Sea. Since the 1998–2000 war, more than 95% of the volume of Ethiopia’s foreign trade has passed through the axis between Addis Ababa and Djibouti.
• The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea began in 1998 after the dispute over Badme combined with friction over the use of Eritrean ports, Eritrea’s new currency, and each state’s authority at the border.
• The Algiers Agreement of 2000 ended open war and created commissions to delimit the border and examine compensation claims. The decision that awarded Badme to Eritrea did not produce an accepted demarcation on the ground for years.
• The 2018 rapprochement between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki ended the formal state of war. The relationship still depended on the personal decisions of the two leaders and on fragile institutions for managing the border, trade, and security.
• The war in Tigray, the Pretoria Agreement of 2022, Amhara mobilizations inside Ethiopia, and Ethiopia’s dispute over access to the Red Sea placed the relationship back in a risky environment, without making a new war inevitable.

How Eritrea and Ethiopia Became Linked

The modern history of Eritrea followed a path different from Ethiopia’s imperial trajectory. In the late nineteenth century, Italy consolidated Eritrea as a colony on the Red Sea coast and made the region a political and military base. Ethiopia, by contrast, preserved its independence after defeating Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. Fascist Italy occupied the country only between 1936 and 1941. After Italy’s defeat in World War II, Eritrea came under British administration. At that point, powers and international bodies debated Eritrea’s future: independence, division, or some form of link to Ethiopia. The difference between Eritrea’s colonial experience and Ethiopia’s continuity as a state made the later union politically unstable from the beginning.

The decisive arrangement came through the United Nations. In 1950, the UN General Assembly recommended that Eritrea become an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia under the Ethiopian Crown. The federation took effect in 1952 and, in principle, preserved Eritrea’s own institutions. In practice, the Ethiopian government gradually reduced that autonomy. In 1961, Eritrean groups began the armed struggle for independence. The next year, Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved the federation and annexed Eritrea to the Ethiopian state. The 1962 annexation turned a dispute over autonomy into a prolonged war against rule from Addis Ababa.

The Eritrean war of independence crossed the fall of the Ethiopian empire and the rise of the Derg, the Marxist military regime that governed Ethiopia from 1974. The Derg faced insurgencies in several regions and kept Eritrea by force. In the early 1990s, two armed fronts changed politics in the Horn of Africa. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front took Asmara, Eritrea’s capital. In Ethiopia, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front—dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front—entered Addis Ababa and overthrew the Derg. The 1993 referendum confirmed Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia and created two states where there had previously been an imperial relationship.

Why Independence Changed Ethiopia’s Geography

Eritrean independence altered Ethiopia’s strategic position: the new state came to control the entire coastline that had previously given Addis Ababa direct access to the Red Sea. Assab, in southern Eritrea, was the most important port for Ethiopian trade in the early years after separation. Massawa, farther north, was another Eritrean port city on the Red Sea. Independence created a new political border and made Ethiopia’s external economy depend on agreements with coastal states rather than on its own coastline.

In the first years after 1993, the two governments tried to manage this interdependence. Ethiopia continued to use mainly the Port of Assab, and the elites of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front still shared the memory of the struggle against the Derg. This rapprochement depended on trust between revolutionary leaders and on economic rules that were not very stable. When Eritrea introduced its currency, the nakfa, in 1997, disputes over payments and port use became harder to resolve. The introduction of the nakfa turned economic interdependence into a source of friction, forcing the two governments to renegotiate costs and payment methods.

At the same time, border disagreements gained political weight. In areas such as Badme, a small locality in the border region between Ethiopia and Eritrea, both governments claimed legitimate authority over the territory. The danger lay in the combination of two different problems. On one side, there were concrete disagreements over local administration and the border inherited from the colonial period. On the other, each government needed to show its domestic public that it would not accept territorial loss after years of armed struggle and nation-building.

Why the 1998–2000 War Began

The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea began in 1998 and lasted until 2000. The dispute over Badme became the most visible trigger. Forces and authorities on both sides treated that small border locality as proof of sovereignty. For the Ethiopian government, Eritrean moves in the area looked like an armed entry into Ethiopian territory. For the Eritrean government, the Ethiopian presence in Badme and nearby areas kept territory that Asmara considered Eritrean under Addis Ababa’s control. Badme mattered less for its size than for the demand it placed on both governments: defining which state exercised authority on a poorly implemented border.

The confrontation over Badme opened the military crisis, and earlier deterioration explains why the dispute spread so quickly. Ethiopia complained about the costs and conditions for using Eritrean ports. Eritrea defended its new currency and its economic autonomy. The two governments disagreed over the border line. Once the former allies had become separate governments, each technical dispute began to touch the legitimacy of the new states. A port tariff, a payment rule, or a border patrol could be interpreted as political pressure on the other country’s sovereignty.

The fighting left tens of thousands dead, displaced populations, and militarized the border between the two countries. The war redrew Ethiopian logistics. Ethiopia stopped using Eritrean ports and concentrated its foreign trade in Djibouti. Eritrea lost revenues associated with Ethiopian trade and began to organize much of its security policy around the perceived threat from Ethiopia. By reducing shared commercial routines, economic separation left the relationship more dependent on the border, troops, and mutual accusations.

What Algiers Resolved and What It Left Pending

The Algiers process ended open war through two successive agreements. In June 2000, the parties accepted a cessation of hostilities. In December of the same year, the Algiers Agreement created the postwar legal architecture. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission was to delimit and demarcate the border, while the Claims Commission would examine compensation claims. This division separated the territorial question, concerning where the border lay, from the reparations question, concerning which losses should generate compensation.

The Boundary Commission decided in 2002 that Badme lay on the Eritrean side of the line. The decision was meant to be final and binding. Implementation required Ethiopia to accept real changes in control over disputed areas, and this political cost blocked physical demarcation. Addis Ababa argued that full implementation of the decision should come with dialogue, renewed political relations, and more predictable security conditions. For Eritrea, Ethiopia’s refusal to accept demarcation represented noncompliance with an international decision that Asmara considered settled.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea monitored the ceasefire and the temporary security zone until 2008. By the time the mandate ended, the UN already faced operational restrictions and a lack of political progress. Between 2000 and 2018, therefore, the two countries maintained a frozen hostility, with few large-scale clashes and with the border prepared for renewed escalation.

This frozen hostility affected domestic politics. In Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki’s government used the external threat to justify militarization, political closure, and indefinite national service. In this system, young people can be conscripted into military or civilian functions with no clear end date, turning national defense into a permanent instrument of social control. In Ethiopia, governments dominated by the EPRDF coalition insisted that border implementation should be part of a broader negotiation. Withdrawal from disputed areas without political guarantees could look like a unilateral concession.

The 2018 Peace and Its Limits

The most visible change occurred in 2018, when Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s prime minister. Abiy announced that he would accept the Algiers framework and the Boundary Commission decision. He then visited Asmara for a meeting with Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s president since independence. On July 9, 2018, the two leaders signed a Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship. A later agreement in Jeddah reaffirmed the rapprochement.

The public impact was strong. Embassies reopened, flights resumed, families separated by the border were able to reunite, and the formal state of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea ended. In 2019, Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for his initiative toward Eritrea. The 2018 gesture ended formal hostility and restored diplomatic channels that had been closed for nearly two decades.

Even so, the 2018 rapprochement was stronger as a symbolic break than as institutional construction. The practical agenda remained thin: demarcating the border, reopening trade and movement, setting security rules, and deciding how future disputes would be resolved. With decisions depending mainly on Abiy and Isaias, the relationship improved when the two leaders saw political advantage in rapprochement and became vulnerable when their interests no longer coincided. Formal hostility ended without a stable routine for managing the issues that had led the countries to war.

How Tigray Put the Relationship Back Under Strain

Tigray is a region of northern Ethiopia, bordering Eritrea, and its politics weighs directly on the bilateral relationship. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, led for decades the coalition that dominated Ethiopia after the fall of the Derg. For Isaias Afwerki, the TPLF remained a strategic adversary: it had led Ethiopia during the 1998–2000 war and retained influence in a region adjacent to the Eritrean border. Given this geography, internal disputes in Tigray can affect security between Ethiopia and Eritrea and in the Horn of Africa.

When the Tigray war began in November 2020, after the rupture between the Ethiopian federal government and regional authorities linked to the TPLF, Eritrea entered the conflict alongside Ethiopian federal forces. International organizations and news outlets reported serious abuses by different parties to the war, with accusations also directed at Eritrean forces. Eritrean participation changed the meaning of the 2018 peace: the rapprochement between Abiy and Isaias began to connect the interstate border to Ethiopia’s internal dispute against the TPLF.

The Pretoria Agreement, signed in November 2022, ended the main war between Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF. The agreement bound the federal government and the TPLF, while Asmara remained outside the negotiating table. That means the Pretoria understanding did not bind the Eritrean government or resolve Isaias’s concerns about the political and military reorganization of Tigray. After the war, new tensions emerged over regional administration and over Eritrean presence or influence near the border. Armed groups inside Ethiopia itself added another source of instability. Eritrea’s exclusion from the Pretoria agreement kept open security questions that the 2018 peace could no longer manage.

Amhara actors need to be understood in this frame. The Amharas form one of Ethiopia’s largest ethnolinguistic groups, and political forces and militias associated with parts of the Amhara community, such as Fano networks, played a role in the Tigray war and in disputes over areas in western and southern Tigray. When these groups clash with the federal government or are accused of receiving external support, the tension no longer remains only a local problem. It can affect the border with Eritrea, the relationship between Addis Ababa and Asmara, and the stability of the Pretoria agreement.

Why Access to the Red Sea Returned to the Center

Ethiopia presents access to the sea as an economic and strategic need. The argument starts from a material fact: a country with a very large population and an economy dependent on imports needs another government to authorize and administer its maritime outlet. Since the war with Eritrea, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti axis has accounted for more than 95% of the volume of Ethiopia’s foreign trade. This dependence gives Djibouti revenue and diplomatic importance, while Ethiopia remains exposed to transport costs, bottlenecks, and decisions made by another coastal state.

Three forms of access to the sea would have different consequences. Commercial access means using port and customs services under another state’s authority. In this model, Ethiopia negotiates conditions for goods to enter and leave, without receiving coastal territory. Naval or security access would involve a base, military presence, or some maritime protection arrangement accepted by the coastal state. Sovereign access, finally, would mean that Ethiopia had its own territory on the coast, a scenario that neighbors would treat as a direct threat to territorial integrity. The distinction between commercial access and sovereign access defines whether Ethiopia’s proposal looks like logistical negotiation or border revision.

This distinction is decisive for Eritrea. If Ethiopian authorities speak of Assab, the historic loss of the coastline, or an Ethiopian right to the Red Sea without clarifying that they defend only commercial agreements, the Eritrean government may interpret the message as a territorial claim. For Asmara, Assab and Massawa are Eritrean cities on a coast won after the war of independence. As a result, an Ethiopian proposal presented as a transport solution may be received by Eritrea as pressure on its sovereignty. The same sentence about ports can carry different meanings: in Addis Ababa, it means logistical diversification, while in Asmara it may sound like a territorial threat.

Ethiopia’s search for alternatives involves Somalia and Somaliland. In January 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum with Somaliland, a territory that has functioned with de facto autonomy since 1991, although its independence from Somalia remains widely contested. The arrangement was publicly presented as a possible exchange between Ethiopian access to a section of the coast and eventual Ethiopian recognition of Somaliland. Somalia rejected the memorandum, alleging that it violated its sovereignty. In December 2024, the Ankara Declaration, mediated by Turkey, tried to reduce the tension by recognizing Somali sovereignty and, at the same time, admitting Ethiopia’s need for reliable access to the sea by commercial means under Somalia’s authority.

How Other Regional Actors Affect the Calculation

The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are strategic routes for trade and energy, as well as security corridors, so the relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea is not limited to the two countries. Djibouti has an interest in preserving its role as Ethiopia’s main outlet to the sea. Somalia tries to prevent agreements between Ethiopia and Somaliland from weakening its claim to sovereignty over all Somali territory. Somaliland, in turn, uses its coast and the Port of Berbera to seek external recognition and investment. Each time Ethiopia gains an alternative route, it reduces one dependency and opens a new political negotiation.

Egypt reads Ethiopian movement through another rivalry. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, known by the acronym GERD, is a dam built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, the Nile’s main tributary. The Egyptian government fears that Ethiopian control over the filling and operation of the dam will reduce the predictability of Nile waters. In Cairo, Ethiopian moves in the Horn of Africa can therefore be read as part of a broader dispute over regional power, Nile water, and alliance politics.

Sudan appears as a possible transit alternative for Ethiopia. Its territory borders Ethiopia and reaches the Red Sea. The Sudanese civil war makes any route through Sudan very uncertain. In addition, Gulf states can finance African ports to gain logistical presence and security influence. These resources create opportunities for coastal states, but they can also bring external rivalries into local disputes over port control, military bases, and transit rules.

Regional and global institutions offer de-escalation channels with limited strength. The African Union and the UN defend sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. IGAD, a Horn of Africa and East African bloc, could serve as a regional forum for consultation. Eritrea’s withdrawal from IGAD in December 2025 reduced a space in which Asmara could be included in regional negotiations or pressured by neighbors. Eritrea’s departure from IGAD reduced a regional consultation channel.

The Current Risk of Renewed Escalation

In the first half of 2026, the relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea again became marked by accusations, military tension, and uncertainty in Tigray. Ethiopia accused Eritrea of military aggression and support for armed groups. Eritrea rejected Ethiopian accusations and denounced Addis Ababa’s war ambitions. At the same time, Ethiopia’s internal disputes with Tigrayan and Amhara actors continued to affect the security environment near the border.

The main risk does not lie in a single declaration or a single port route. It arises when three problems reinforce one another: the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea remains politically sensitive, Tigray’s politics remains unstable, and Ethiopian discourse on access to the Red Sea can be interpreted as a territorial claim. If one government treats the issue as a commercial negotiation and the other understands it as a threat of border revision, the margin for miscalculation narrows.

A less dangerous relationship would require a clear separation between commercial access and territorial sovereignty. It would also require communication channels about the border and a political solution for Tigray that does not turn the region into a pathway toward a new war between states. The 2018 peace showed that leaders can break an old hostility when they see an advantage in doing so. What it did not show was the ability of Ethiopia and Eritrea to create enough institutions to prevent geography, the memory of war, and domestic politics from pushing the two countries back toward confrontation.