Tigray War

Um, you know, that's not to downplay it, right? Like the potential humanitarian cost is enormous.

The, uh, this was true for the last war, right? The Tigray War in 2020 through to 2022, which killed, uh, an estimated sort of 300,000 people, mostly civilians.

And it is worth noting that this could interact in really quite miserable ways with, well, climate trouble, as it were, right?

Yeah.

The situation in Tigray has become increasingly tense.

In recent hours, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the region's main political force, which fought against the federal government during the twenty twenty to twenty twenty-two Tigray War, and the Tigray Defense Forces, as well as the Tigrayan military forces that fought the Ethiopian army during that same war, have intensified conflict with Ethiopian military forces.

Numerous clashes have been reported along the Tekeze River, west of Tigray, in the Wolkait area on the border with the Afar region and in various parts of Amhara.

The death toll has yet to be independently verified.

Two wars could merge.

This is the most dangerous moment in the Horn of Africa since the Tigray War began in 2020.

Multiple insurgencies, a rebel alliance, drone strikes, regional proxy games, and a peace deal that exists only on paper.

Now that map only flashed for a second, but talking the Red Sea near Djibouti, near all these things, which is across the Red Sea from Yemen, where the other war is raging.

OK, so clearly this is a very interesting time.

I mean, just the other day, the U.S. lifted sanctions on Eritrea's ruling party and its military sanctions that were imposed because of Eritrea's role in the Tigray War.

OK, and now the U.S. has ended its arms embargo on Ethiopia.

What do you make of U.S. opening the door to both countries at a moment when tensions now have just begun to rise again?

There are some strong disincentives against war, but it would be foolish for anyone to bank on that holding on its own, given the extreme bad blood and the very high regional temperature.

And because of the Sudan war largely, the regional picture is much different than it was in 2020 when the first Tigray War happened, which was very, very deadly on its own.

But now, in the context of the Sudan War, I don't think a new war in Tigray, if it re-erupted, could be easily contained.

The TPLF has formed a close...

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Tigrayan forces said they had entered a defensive war against Ethiopia's government, thus ending four years of peace between the two sides.

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