Rebel forces in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray launched a major offensive against the government, ending a four-year ceasefire that had halted a gruesome conflict. Tensions over who controls the contested region have been growing for months; a previous war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Experts fear renewed fighting could quickly spill into a wider conflict across the Horn of Africa, potentially threatening further destabilization of shipping along the Red Sea: Eritrea, one of the belligerents in the 2020-2022 conflict, has more than 2,000 km of coastline. The new offensive has caused “psychological trauma in our city and our people were in a state of panic,” the mayor of a Tigrayan town said.