Ethiopia and Eritrea are back to being enemies

In this issue, I'm zooming in on Ethiopia: where the country is politically and mentally and what its messy friends-turned-foes relationships look like right now. There are serious analysts warning that Ethiopia could be sliding toward yet another war, and I want you to have the context to understand what it really means if and when that alert pops up on your feed.

Also inside: a geopolitical pizza app, the war between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Women's Africa Cup of Nations, Indonesia's blockbuster corruption trial, Bolivian Indigenous electro, and plenty more corners of the world you probably haven't seen on your timeline yet.

There's a chance that war returns to northern Ethiopia

Refresher: Ethiopia is a huge country in East Africa. Inside Ethiopia, there are different regions, almost like semi-independent states, each with their own ethnic identity and sometimes their own armed fighters. Two of these regions are Tigray (in the north) and Amhara (next to it). Next door is a separate country called Eritrea, which used to be part of Ethiopia but broke away decades ago. In 2020, the Ethiopian government went to war against the TPLF, the political and military group that runs Tigray. Over 600,000 died because of it, according to an envoy from the African Union (AU). To win, Ethiopia teamed up with two allies: Eritrea (the neighboring country) and Amhara fighters (from the neighboring region). Together the three of them defeated the TPLF and a peace deal was signed in 2022 that stopped the fighting between the TPLF and Ethiopia only. Eritrea wasn't part of it and they didn't like that at all.

What happened:
Fast forward to 2026: This peace deal is looking like it's falling apart very slowly. Ethiopia has fallen out with both of its former allies, Eritrea and Amhara fighters. And there's renewed tension between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government.

Why this matters: Ethiopia is Africa's second-most populous country. More than 130 million people live here.

Tell me more:
Let me bring you up to speed on everyone's POVs:

• The TPLF is furious because the land Amhara seized during the war was never returned. Nearly a million Tigrayan people are still living in refugee camps inside their own country, unable to go home. The Ethiopian government promised to fix this but hasn't. Plus: Ethiopia has elections coming up in June. The government has stripped the TPLF of its legal status as a political party, meaning they can't even run candidates. Ethiopia also just removed five districts from Tigray's administrative control. Tigrayans see this as the government squeezing them out completely. There were already some smaller clashes in January.
• The Amhara want to keep western Tigray. It's a fertile land they consider theirs historically.
• Eritrea is now reportedly arming and backing the TPLF and the Amhara. Ethiopia, of course, is furious about this. The two countries fell out because Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has become obsessed with getting access to the sea. Ethiopia is landlocked (it has no coastline, no ports) and Abiy sees this as a critical weakness for a country of this many people. He has said publicly that Ethiopia must have Red Sea access, and he's hinted at taking Eritrea's southern port by force if necessary. For Eritrea, that's an existential threat (they literally fought a war to break away from Ethiopia and keep it). So Eritrea's calculation is: if Ethiopia gets destabilized from within (by the TPLF, by Amhara rebels), then Abiy Ahmed is too busy to come after their ports. He is not too busy though publicly admitting last month that Eritrean soldiers massacred civilians in the city of Aksum during the Tigray war (back in 2020, he told parliament "not a single civilian was killed".)

Did you know? Most of what Ethiopia imports or exports has to go through someone else's port. Right now, that's mainly the tiny neighboring country of Djibouti, which charges fees for this service. Those fees add up to about US$1.5 billion every year. Until recently, Ethiopia's entire stockpile of foreign currency (countries need foreign currencies, mostly US dollar or euros, to trade) was actually less than what they were paying Djibouti every year. This is also why Ethiopia wanted that sea access deal with Somaliland last year, which made Somalia furious.

How serious is this "war might return" statement?
Well, it hasn't been very peaceful in Ethiopia since the 2022 'peace deal'. The country has been running on empty for a while now. By the end of last year, Ethiopia was looking rough:

• Too many wars at the same time: Because of multiple violent conflicts in...