Africa File, March 13, 2025: Looming Civil Wars in Ethiopia, South Sudan Threaten to Plunge Horn into Crisis; Renewed Peace Talks in DRC as M23 Advances

Africa File, March 13, 2025: Looming Civil Wars in Ethiopia, South Sudan Threaten to Plunge Horn into Crisis; Renewed Peace Talks in DRC as M23 Advances

Authors: Liam Karr, Kathryn Tyson, and Yale Ford

Contributors: John Reece and Nick Markiewicz

Data Cutoff: March 13, 2025, at 10 a.m.

Editor's Note: The Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute publishes these updates with support from the Institute for the Study of War.

The Africa File provides regular analysis and assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’ activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US personnel and interests.

Key Takeaways:

• Ethiopia. A violent power struggle in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region risks sparking another civil war in Ethiopia, which could, in turn, expand quickly to include Eritrea. Renewed conflict in Tigray or between Ethiopia and Eritrea would generate an economic, humanitarian, and security crisis that would have reverberations across Africa and even into Europe. External powers, such as Iran and Russia, have demonstrated interest in exploiting conflict in the region to consolidate their own influence around the Red Sea. Salafi-jihadi groups would benefit from such crises as well, given that it would produce a wall of instability across Africa, stretching from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa. A war would exacerbate the refugee crisis in the region and increase migration flows to Europe and the Gulf states.
• Sudan. The SAF and RSF could seek to capitalize on the resumption of civil war in South Sudan The SAF could use its historic ties with militias in northern South Sudan to counter RSF efforts to use South Sudan as a rear support base, as the SAF tries to contain the RSF west of the Nile River. An expansion of fighting toward the Sudan–South Sudan border would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis there and could pressure civilians to flee from South Sudan to Sudan. The RSF is trying to counter SAF advances toward western Sudan by attacking an SAF-controlled state capital on a major highway into Darfur.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains unlikely to accede to M23’s and Rwanda’s maximalist negotiating demands despite nominally conceding to Angolan-mediated direct talks with M23. The DRC, M23, and Rwanda may be open to short-term ceasefires as they seek to reset and set conditions for future offensives. M23 has continued to advance in several areas of eastern DRC since the beginning of March.

Assessments:

Ethiopia

The following text is from the Africa File Special Edition “Renewed War in Ethiopia Threatens to Draw in Eritrea and Plunge the Horn of Africa into Crisis.” | “Tigray Threatens to Spark the Next Eritrean-Ethiopian War and Plunge the Horn of Africa into Crisis.”

Tigrayan forces aligned with the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) leader attacked the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) on March 11, which risks sparking another civil war in Ethiopia. Tigrayan forces aligned with TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael dismantled local offices of the federally backed TIA, opened fire on civilians, and detained TIA cabinet members in at least three areas in Tigray on March 11.[1] Eritrean and Ethiopian media released conflicting reports on whether the anti-TIA forces attacked the TIA in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.[2] The TPLF posted on March 13 that they had “entered offices” and “started services” in Mekelle and the Eastern zone of Tigray.[3] The TIA had suspended high-ranking officers and ordered Tigrayan forces to all military movement in the days before the attacks after warning that some Tigrayan forces were preparing “an outright coup.” [4] The TIA on March 12 called on the international community and the Ethiopian federal government to “exert all necessary pressure” on the anti-TIA forces.[5] Several European governments have since warned against travel to Ethiopia and encouraged their citizens to either leave or stock up on supplies in case the situation deteriorates.[6]

Figure 1. Attacks against Tigray Interim Administration

Source: Liam Karr.

The TPLF is an ethno-nationalist paramilitary group and political party based in the northern Tigray region in Ethiopia and fought the Ethiopian government in a civil war from 2020 until the Pretoria peace treaty in 2022.[7] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed the TIA as a temporary government in May 2023 as part of the Pretoria agreement and selected Getachew Reda—the former deputy head of the TPLF—as its leader.[8] The appointment of Reda split the TPLF into two factions. TIA critics have accused the TIA of acting in the interests of the federal government, while the TIA has accused the TPLF of trying to regain control over Tigray.[9] Many aspects of the Pretoria agreement, including the complete disarmament of the Tigray Defense Forces, have not been implemented. These failures have driven tensions between the TIA, TPLF, and Ethiopian federal government.[10]

The battle for legitimacy between the TPLF and TIA began in October 2023 and culminated in the violent power grabs in March 2025. The TIA dismissed several members of the TPLF in October 2023 for trying to attend a TPLF meeting without the approval of the TIA.[11] Tensions worsened when Ethiopia’s election board denied the TPLF’s request to be fully reinstated as a political party in August 2024.[12]  The TPLF and TIA exchanged accusations of corruption, and the TIA accused the TPLF of “plotting a coup” in September 2024.[13] Over 200 officers aligned with the TPLF called for the dissolution of the TIA in January 2025.[14]

Figure 2. Tigray Conflict: 2022–2025 Timeline

Source: Kathryn Tyson.

A reignited civil war in Tigray may escalate rapidly into a proxy or a regional war between longtime rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea, as Eritrea seeks to weaken and fragment Ethiopia and Ethiopia seeks Red Sea access. Recent developments indicate that a wider war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is imminent. The TIA leader accused “external forces” of supporting the armed seizures of government offices in Tigray.[15] The attacks against the TIA occurred days after Lieutenant General Tsadkan Gebretensae, the TIA Vice President and former ENDF chief of staff, warned on March 10 that Eritrea and Ethiopia are in the “final stages” of preparations for war and that a conflict between the two sides—likely in Tigray—“seems” inevitable.[16] Eritrea also implemented a nationwide military mobilization in February, and Ethiopia deployed troops toward the Eritrean border in March.[17] The former US deputy special envoy for the Horn of Africa and the EU special representative for the Horn of Africa warned again on March 12 that “the speed and scale of mobilization and deployment on all sides” indicates an imminent conflict.[18]

Eritrea and Ethiopia have been fierce rivals since the mid-1990s—shortly after Eritrea officially gained independence with Ethiopian consent in 1993. Economic tensions and border disputes led to the Eritrean-Ethiopian war in May 1998, and the two continued to militarize their shared border and support opposition groups to destabilize the other in the decades following a peace agreement in 2000.[19]

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power in 2018 seemed to reset Eritrean-Ethiopian relations and led to Eritrean-Ethiopian cooperation during the Tigray war, but this alliance of convenience has not lasted. Abiy sought to curb the influence of the TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopia since it overthrew the previous government alongside Eritrean forces in 1991, upon taking power.[20] This blossoming relationship and Eritrea’s historic distrust of the TPLF led Eritrea to quickly back the Ethiopian government when the TPLF rebelled against Abiy in November 2020.[21] The 2022 Pretoria agreement excluded Eritrea as a signatory and left Eritrean security objectives unaddressed by leaving the TPLF intact, however.[22]  Some reports even said that Eritrea believed that the Pretoria agreement heightened the threat from Ethiopia because the deal increased alignment between the TPLF and the Ethiopian federal government.[23] 

Eritrea and Ethiopia have retur...
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