Zakiya Hatia
The Horn of Africa is the most important region we are not paying attention to, and it is time we changed that.
I have spent the past year deep in research on African security, and the one question I kept circling back to was this: Why is every global power suddenly fixated on the Horn of Africa?
The more I dug, the clearer it became. This region shapes more of the world than most of us realise.
Let us start with the basics: whoever controls the Horn controls the Red Sea. And whoever controls the Red Sea controls the flow of global trade.
At the centre of this is the Bab al Mandab strait, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and connecting Africa to the Arabian Peninsula. It is one of the world’s most critical choke points.
As Dr Namhla Thando Matshanda, Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria, told me: “The Horn of Africa is of major strategic value for military, economic, and political reasons, which is why it is such a contested geopolitical space.”
Red Sea ports serve as global gateways for pipelines, shipping routes, and feeder services.
“The Red Sea ports are the global gateways for pipelines and feeder services. Disruption of these ports or otherwise chalk points can instantly raise fright rates, delays in critical goods and can be a major challenge to international trade,” explained Imran Abdirahman, Executive Director of the ERGO International Peace Initiative.
This is why ports in Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, and Somaliland are not just coastal outposts. They are pieces on a global chessboard.
Djibouti alone hosts multiple foreign military bases positioned around the same strategic waterway.
But a more urgent story is unfolding: rising tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
“So what we seeing now is a major escalation really, in what has been called a war of words between the heads of state of Eritrea, as well as Ethiopia. The port of Assab in Eritrea is of great in interest for the Ethiopians and so you know they have their eye on the port of Assab and this naturally raises alarms for the Eritreans,” Matashanda said.
Ethiopia’s renewed push for sea access, historical border grievances, and mistrust following the Tigray conflict have created a volatile atmosphere.
Eritrea’s port of Assab, which Ethiopia is increasingly eyeing, has become the centre of a sharp exchange of words between the two states.
A conflict in the Horn would not stay in the Horn.
Experts say it would rattle global shipping, energy flows, and international security.
The world should be paying attention.
