Eritrea Severs All Diplomatic Ties With Ethiopia After Addis Ababa Expels Diplomats and Closes Embassy

What's New

Since Ethiopian federal forces reported killing or capturing 500 rebel fighters after the TPLF-led alliance seized three regional airports on September 25, the war has jumped from the battlefield into the diplomatic arena. On Thursday, October 1, Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry announced it was closing its embassy in Asmara and declaring 10 Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa persona non grata, giving them 48 hours to leave, according to Al Jazeera and Reuters reporting carried by The Print and Internazionale.

Eritrea responded within hours. Its Foreign Ministry said on X that it had "no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails." Eritrea's Information Minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, told Reuters that expelling all Eritrean diplomats effectively amounted to Ethiopia closing Eritrea's embassy for it.

This represents the sharpest rupture between the two countries since they restored relations in 2018, a deal that won Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, according to Dawan Africa.

The Accusations, From Both Sides

Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry accused Eritrea of "direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence" and said the expelled diplomats had engaged in activities posing "a direct threat to Ethiopia's national security," in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, according to TRT World. Ethiopia did not name the diplomats or detail the alleged activities, somaliatoday reported.

Eritrea called the accusation "astounding" and flipped it back on Addis Ababa. "In reality, it is Ethiopia which has been pursuing an agenda of incessant hostility," its ministry said, per Al Jazeera, accusing Ethiopia of waging a campaign for Red Sea access that amounts to a "publicly pronounced declaration of war" and of training and arming Eritrean opposition groups to engineer regime change in Asmara.

Neither claim has been independently verified. Ethiopia has not released evidence of Eritrean diplomats' alleged security activities. Eritrea has not substantiated its claim that Ethiopia is arming its internal opposition.

A reasonable skeptic of Ethiopia's framing would note that Addis Ababa has, in fact, spoken openly for years about wanting sovereign Red Sea access, which supports Eritrea's complaint. That said, wanting port access is not the same as declaring war, and no source here shows Ethiopia has taken military action against Eritrean territory.

Egypt Gets Pulled In Too

Ethiopia also declared an Egyptian diplomat persona non grata on Thursday, ordering him out within 48 hours, according to the state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation and two sources cited by Reuters. Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News reported Cairo responded by expelling an Ethiopian embassy counsellor on the same timeline, with a senior Egyptian source calling Ethiopia's move "unfortunate" and insisting Cairo has "consistently rejected interference in the internal affairs of other countries."

Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the seven-group opposition coalition, which calls itself the Alliance for Survival and is led by the TPLF. All three countries deny it, according to Reuters.

Drone Strikes in the Capital

Overnight before Thursday's diplomatic moves, explosions were heard in Addis Ababa, hundreds of kilometers from the front lines in Tigray, Amhara and Afar. A source linked to the opposition alliance told Reuters the coalition had carried out several drone strikes in the capital, including attempts to hit the military's headquarters. Three diplomatic sources confirmed hearing the blasts, but witnesses said there was no visible damage near the military base. If confirmed, this would be the first known drone attack by anti-government forces on the capital itself. No independent confirmation of the strikes' origin or targets has been reported.

On the Ground

Pro-government forces say they recaptured Alamata, a town about 120 kilometers south of the Tigrayan capital Mekelle, in a counter-offensive this week, according to somaliatoday. The Afar region's chief administrator, Haji Awol Arba, told Al Jazeera that Eritrean soldiers had crossed into Afar to join the alliance's offensive, an allegation Eritrea denies.

The humanitarian toll is climbing. Médecins Sans Frontières reports more than 720 people wounded since fighting resumed in northern Ethiopia in late September, according to Dawan Africa.

What's Unresolved

No international body has verified who carried out the Addis Ababa blasts, whether Eritrean troops are actually operating inside Ethiopian territory, or what specific "security threat" the expelled Eritrean diplomats allegedly posed. Ethiopia's government, the federal defense force, and the TPLF did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. With embassies now closing on both sides, the two governments have cut off the normal diplomatic channel for de-escalation right as drone warfare reaches the Ethiopian capital for the first time in this conflict.