Eritrea Cuts All Diplomatic Ties With Ethiopia After Addis Ababa Expels Envoys

Eritrea announced on Thursday that it is severing all diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, a dramatic rupture that deepens an already volatile confrontation between the two Horn of Africa neighbours as fighting continues between Ethiopia's federal forces and a coalition of armed opposition groups. The move came within hours of Ethiopia's decision to shut its embassy in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, and declare ten Eritrean diplomats persona non grata.

In a statement posted on X, Eritrea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had "no option but to reciprocate in kind," warning that the break in ties would carry "all the negative corollaries that this entails." The ministry described Ethiopian allegations of Eritrean hostility as "astounding," insisting instead that Addis Ababa has pursued "an agenda of incessant hostility" of its own.

Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry had earlier announced the closure of its embassy in Asmara, citing what it called Eritrea's "direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence." Among the ten Eritrean officials ordered to leave Ethiopia within 48 hours were the charge d'affaires and diplomats accredited to the African Union, who were accused of engaging in activities posing a direct threat to Ethiopian national security.

The tit-for-tat expulsions mark the most severe deterioration in relations between the two countries in years, and they unfolded against a backdrop of widening armed conflict inside Ethiopia. Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing an opposition alliance led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been battling troops loyal to the federal government since last week.

Fierce clashes have continued across northern Ethiopia. Explosions were reported in Addis Ababa on Wednesday and Thursday, while opposition fighters have engaged government forces in the northern Afar region. Days after the latest round of fighting erupted, Haji Awol Arba, the chief administrator of Afar, told Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into the region to join the alliance's offensive — an allegation Asmara has not acknowledged.

Eritrea rejected Ethiopia's accusations directly, countering that Addis Ababa had waged war against it in pursuit of access to the Red Sea. It also accused Ethiopia of hosting, training and arming Eritrean opposition groups in an effort to foment internal unrest. The exchange of accusations reflects how far the relationship has fallen since the two sides signed a landmark peace deal in 2018.

That year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office and moved swiftly to end two decades of hostility with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, a thaw that earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize. The reconciliation formally ended a border war that had claimed tens of thousands of lives between 1998 and 2000, and it reopened embassies, flights and telephone links that had been frozen for twenty years.

The rapprochement proved short-lived. Eritrea fought alongside Ethiopian government forces during the 2020-2022 Tigray war, but relations soured soon after the fighting stopped. Eritrea was not a party to the Pretoria Peace Agreement, signed in November 2022, which ended that conflict — a diplomatic exclusion that left Asmara outside the settlement framework and increasingly at odds with its neighbour.

At the heart of the renewed tension is Abiy's repeated insistence that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to direct access to the sea. Officials in Asmara interpret those statements as a declaration of territorial ambition against Eritrea, which won independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a decades-long armed struggle led by Isaias. Ethiopia formally annexed Eritrea in 1962, and the bitter memory of that union continues to shape Eritrean suspicions of Ethiopian intentions.

The current escalation is the largest since the end of the Tigray war, and it carries significant risks for the wider region. Ethiopia's accusations against Sudan and Egypt, along with Eritrea's counterclaims, threaten to draw neighbouring states further into the conflict. The presence of Eritrean diplomats accredited to the African Union among those expelled also raises the prospect of the dispute spilling into continental diplomatic forums.

For ordinary citizens on both sides, the severing of ties closes the few remaining channels of communication and cooperation that had survived the post-2018 opening. Embassies that were reopened with fanfare eight years ago are now being shuttered, and the diplomatic infrastructure built during the brief period of normalisation is being dismantled piece by piece.

Analysts caution that the absence of diplomatic channels removes a critical safety valve at precisely the moment when miscalculation is most dangerous. With fighting spreading across northern Ethiopia, explosions sounding in the capital and accusations of foreign intervention multiplying, the two governments now have few direct means of de-escalating a confrontation that has already drawn in regional powers.

The coming days will test whether external mediators — including the African Union and Ethiopia's international partners — can prevent the rupture from hardening into a longer-term strategic break. What began as a dispute over expelled diplomats has quickly become the most serious crisis in Ethiopia-Eritrea relations since the brief era of peace that began in 2018, and the trajectory of the conflict remains dangerously uncertain.