Ethiopian troops have taken control of Zalambessa, an Ethiopian town in the northern Tigray region, right on the border with Eritrea. Tanks and heavy weapons have been moving north, and two governments that celebrated peace just eight years ago are now accusing each other of preparing for war. Both have appealed to the United Nations (UN) Security Council as fears grow that the fighting could spread into a much wider conflict.

The history between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been bloody. Eritrea fought for 30 years to gain independence from Ethiopia, finally becoming independent in 1993. But just five years later, the two countries were at war again, this time over their shared border. Tens of thousands of people died before the fighting ended in 2000. Even then, relations remained hostile and the border stayed closed.

This changed in 2018 when Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, reached out to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. In September that year, thousands gathered in Zalambessa waving Ethiopian and Eritrean flags as the two leaders reopened the border crossing for the first time in 20 years. Many had never believed they would see the day.

The reconciliation was so significant that Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for helping end two decades of hostility. He was hailed internationally as a peacemaker. But today, relations between the countries have deteriorated so badly that I can’t help thinking of his award as the Nobel Peace Prize that couldn’t keep the peace.

In retrospect, the first warning signs were already there. Even as Abiy was making peace with Eritrea, tensions were growing inside Ethiopia that would soon lead to another devastating war.

Coalition

For nearly three decades, a political coalition dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had governed Ethiopia. The TPLF came from Tigray, a region in the north of the country, and had wielded enormous influence over Ethiopian politics. When Abiy became prime minister in 2018, that began to change. His reforms and the shifting balance of power brought him increasingly into conflict with Tigrayan leaders.

By November 2020, those tensions had erupted into civil war between Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigrayan forces. Eritrea became involved again, but this time as Ethiopia’s ally. Eritrean troops entered Ethiopia to fight alongside Abiy’s forces against the TPLF, which had been a major political force in the Ethiopian government during the earlier border war with Eritrea.

That civil war lasted two years. Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have died, although the precise toll remains disputed. Many died from hunger and the collapse of essential services. Human rights investigators documented massacres and widespread sexual violence. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and their allies committed grave abuses in Tigray, while Tigrayan fighters were also responsible for atrocities in neighbouring Amhara.

I reported from Amhara in 2021. In a small room at Debre Birhan Hospital, women sat on mats on the floor and on old, dirty mattresses. Some were young, others quite old. They huddled together, many with haunted, vacant eyes, as they told me how TPLF fighters had raped them.

I held the hand of an 80-year-old nun who shook and cried as she described her ordeal. Another woman, about my age, lay on a bed staring at a wall, rocking backwards and forwards with her arms wrapped around herself. She told me how four men had raped her in her home when she was five months pregnant. She lost her baby. What frightened her the most, though, was the thought that her husband, who was away fighting, would reject her when he returned. She kept repeating how terrified she was that he would throw her out. Her fear was so palpable that I began shaking as I listened.

My cameraman went outside to cry.

In another ward, I spoke to a nurse caring for a premature baby whose mother lived too far away to visit every day. Between attending to other patients, the nurse held and rocked the baby so she could have some human contact when her mother couldn’t be there.

Troubling

These are the people I remember as I think now about the possibility of another war. What makes the present situation so troubling is that many of the same players are involved, but their alliances have shifted.

Eritrea, which fought alongside Ethiopia against the TPLF, is now accused of supporting Tigrayan rebels against Abiy’s government. Ethiopia claims Eritrean troops crossed into its northern territory and advanced as far as 60 kilometres inside the country. Eritrea denies the accusations and says Ethiopia is looking for a justification to attack.

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data), an organisation that monitors armed conflicts around the world, reported that Eritrean forces withdrew through Zalambessa and crossed back into Eritrea on Monday. This does not establish that all Eritrean troops have left Ethiopian territory or that the threat of further fighting has passed. The two countries have already severed diplomatic relations. Both insist they are defending themselves against aggression, and both are asking the international community to believe their version of events.

It is difficult to establish exactly what’s happening on the ground. Eritrea is one of the world’s most tightly controlled countries and independent journalists are effectively barred from reporting freely. Access to the conflict areas inside Ethiopia is also restricted, making it difficult to verify either government’s account. When journalists cannot independently establish what’s happening, the competing claims of both sides become that much more difficult to untangle.

Sea Access

There is also another dispute driving the confrontation that goes back to Eritrea’s independence in 1993.

Ethiopia has been landlocked ever since and relies heavily on neighbouring Djibouti for access to international shipping. Abiy argues that access to the Red Sea is essential for his country’s economic future. His government says it wants to achieve this peacefully, although its repeated references to sovereign sea access have alarmed Eritrea.

For Eritreans, it is about far more than trade. Their Red Sea coastline, including the port of Assab, is territory they fought to secure. They fear that Ethiopia’s economic ambitions could eventually become a justification for taking territory by force.

The dispute is particularly dangerous because neither government trusts the other, and both have substantial armed forces. Egypt, which has its own disagreement with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile, has also strengthened its relationship with Eritrea. The Red Sea is one of the world’s most important shipping routes, so instability in the region has consequences far beyond these two countries.

And there is a South African connection that deserves far more attention than it receives.

In November 2022, Pretoria hosted the African Union (AU)-led peace talks that ended the previous war in Tigray. The agreement was signed with former South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, serving on the AU mediation panel alongside former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, and former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. It was celebrated as an example of Africans resolving an African conflict through diplomacy.

But the agreement was between Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF. Eritrea was not a signatory, and several political and security disputes remained unresolved. Now, almost four years later, renewed fighting is threatening the settlement.

This raises an important question about what happens after a peace agreement is signed. The Pretoria agreement brought the fighting to a halt but it did not settle every dispute that had caused the war, nor did it resolve the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea. For the people of Tigray, it is not an academic question. Communities are still living with the consequences of the previous war. Families have been displaced, health facilities destroyed, livelihoods lost, and essential services disrupted. The renewed fighting threatens the very people who have barely recovered from the last catastrophe.

The UN has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, while the AU and other international actors are urging restraint.

In 2018, cameras captured Abiy and Isaias opening the border at Zalambessa before cheering crowds. This week, the news from that same town was about soldiers and heavy weapons moving towards Eritrea.

I don't know whether the two countries will go to war again. But I do know what the last war did to the women I met at Debre Birhan Hospital. I wonder how many more will end up in rooms like the one I sat in.