Eritrea Cuts All Diplomatic Ties with Ethiopia After Addis Ababa Expels Envoys and Shuts Embassy

Eritrea announced on Thursday that it is terminating all diplomatic relations with neighbouring Ethiopia, a dramatic escalation that follows Addis Ababa's decision to expel a group of Eritrean diplomats and shutter its embassy in the Eritrean capital, Asmara. The mutual rupture marks the lowest point in relations between the two Horn of Africa nations in years and comes as armed conflict widens inside Ethiopia.

In a statement posted on X, Eritrea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had "no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails." The ministry described Ethiopian allegations of Eritrean hostility as "astounding," insisting that it is Addis Ababa that has pursued a sustained agenda of aggression against Asmara.

The Eritrean statement accused Ethiopia of waging war against Eritrea in a bid to secure access to the Red Sea, and of hosting, training and arming Eritrean opposition groups in order to foment internal instability. Those charges mirror long-standing tensions rooted in the two countries' tangled history and their unresolved dispute over maritime access.

The rupture was triggered earlier when Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it would close its embassy in Asmara "in response to Eritrea's direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence against Ethiopia." Alongside the embassy closure, Ethiopian authorities declared ten Eritrean diplomats stationed in Addis Ababa — including the charge d'affaires and others accredited to the African Union — persona non grata. Ethiopia accused them of involvement in activities posing a direct threat to its national security and gave them 48 hours to leave the country.

The expulsions and the severing of ties unfold against a backdrop of intensifying combat between Ethiopia's federal forces and a coalition of armed opposition groups. Addis Ababa has publicly accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing an opposition alliance led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been fighting government troops since last week. The TPLF dominated Ethiopia's northern Tigray region during the 2020-2022 civil war.

Fierce clashes have continued in recent days. Explosions were heard in Addis Ababa on Wednesday and Thursday, while fighters have also engaged government forces in the northern Afar region. The violence represents the most serious escalation since the end of the civil war more than three years ago, raising fears that the country could slide back into a broader nationwide conflict.

Days after the latest round of fighting erupted last week, Haji Awol Arba, the chief administrator of the Afar region, told Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Afar to join the alliance's offensive. Eritrea has not confirmed that claim, and its foreign ministry framed the Ethiopian accusations against it as baseless. The allegation nonetheless underscores how quickly the conflict could draw in neighbouring states.

The diplomatic collapse is especially striking given that Eritrea and Ethiopia fought as allies during the Tigray war, when Eritrean forces backed the Ethiopian federal government against the TPLF. That cooperation has since unravelled, with relations deteriorating steadily after the November 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement, which ended the fighting. Eritrea was not a party to those talks, and its exclusion from the settlement is widely seen as a source of lasting resentment in Asmara.

The broader relationship between the two countries has been historically fragile. In 1962, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea, prompting a decades-long armed independence struggle led by the man who is now Eritrea's president, Isaias Afwerki. That campaign ultimately secured independence in 1993, but the two neighbours remained wary of one another, and a devastating border war erupted later in the decade.

Hopes for a lasting thaw emerged in 2018, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office and moved to end the tensions, normalising diplomatic relations with President Isaias. The rapprochement earned Abiy international acclaim, including a Nobel Peace Prize, but the warming proved short-lived and has since given way to renewed rivalry.

A central point of friction has been Abiy's repeated insistence that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to direct access to the sea. In recent years he has returned to that theme publicly — comments that officials in Asmara interpret as a declaration of territorial ambition against Eritrea, whose coastline along the Red Sea is strategically vital. Eritrea's latest statement explicitly tied Ethiopian hostility to that quest for maritime access.

For ordinary citizens on both sides, the severing of ties could mean the closure of the few remaining channels for trade, travel and family contact. Diplomatically, the move removes a crucial line of communication at precisely the moment regional mediators might be needed most, complicating any future peace efforts.

The confrontation also carries wider regional implications. Ethiopia's allegations that Sudan and Egypt are supporting the TPLF-led alliance point to a dangerous web of rivalries stretching across the Horn of Africa and the Nile basin. Cairo and Khartoum have their own disputes with Addis Ababa, most notably over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and any perception of proxy involvement could widen the conflict beyond Ethiopia's borders.

With embassies closing, envoys expelled and troops reportedly moving across frontiers, the risk of a wider war is higher than at any point since 2022. Whether the two governments can find a way back to the negotiating table remains uncertain, but for now the diplomatic channel between Asmara and Addis Ababa has been shut entirely.