Egypt and Ethiopia Spar in Somalia
2024-09-10446 view
Riparian rivals Egypt and Ethiopia are facing off once again, raising tensions over Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland and Ethiopia’s vast dam on the Blue Nile.
The latest spat came after by Cairo sending a delegation of military experts and equipment to Mogadishu in late August, under a recent deal to cooperate on counter-terrorism.
The response of Ethiopia, which has tense relations with both Egypt and Somalia, was to appoint an ambassador to the latter’s separatist Somaliland region. Addis Ababa backs the region’s aspirations, seeing warm relations with an independent Somaliland as a possible route to obtaining an Ethiopian seaport, something it has lacked since Eritrea won its independence in 1993.
While Egypt and Somalia have emphasized counter-terrorism as the main focus of their cooperation, they are clearly motivated by shared fears over Ethiopian actions in the Nile Basin and the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia has fueled Egyptian fears by starting to fill its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile in defiance of downstream countries Egypt and Sudan which depend almost entirely on Nile waters.
Somalia, for its part, is irked by Addis Ababa’s efforts in coordination with Israel to back an independent Somaliland.
Egypt’s move came six months after Ethiopia signed an agreement with Somaliland, giving it access to the Red Sea port of Berbera for both commercial and military purposes in exchange for recognizing the region’s independence. The agreement raised concerns in Cairo about Ethiopia’s influence in the Red Sea and the safety of shipping via the Suez Canal, especially as that the deal raised the possibility of Israeli forces deploying in the region. Somalia saw the agreement as a threat to its security and territorial unity.
It is also clear that Egypt is coordinating with key powers in the Horn of Africa, especially Türkiye. This helps explains Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s historic visit to Ankara in early September, ending a decade-long diplomatic standoff. The visit came just days after Cairo sent troops to Mogadishu. Moreover, Cairo is the main supporter of the Sudanese army against the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group—which is backed by Ethiopia and other regional powers—amid Egyptian efforts to form a broad front against Ethiopia’s policies in the region.
Ethiopia’s move has also sparked the Arab Gulf states’ concerns over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, something Cairo has also sought to exploit in order to persuade them to back its policies in Somalia and across the Horn of Africa.
Cairo appears to want to push Addis Ababa back to the negotiating table, but under a new balance of power giving Egypt greater leverage over Ethiopia to force it to take into account Sudan and Egypt’s fears over the filling of the Renaissance Dam. Egypt will also continue to treat the Federal Government of Somalia as the government of the entire country.
