---
title: "Ethiopia and Eritrea Each Write to the UN to Say the Other Started the War"
description: "Addis Ababa invokes self-defence over a claimed 60km incursion, Asmara calls that a declaration of war, and troops push toward the border"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-11T14:09:12Z
modified: 2026-10-11T19:46:11Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/ethiopia-and-eritrea-each-write-to-the-un-to-say-the-other-s-d67249
language: en
tags: ["ethiopia", "eritrea", "tigray", "war", "red-sea", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Ethiopia and Eritrea Each Write to the UN to Say the Other Started the War

*Addis Ababa invokes self-defence over a claimed 60km incursion, Asmara calls that a declaration of war, and troops push toward the border*

By Nate Ledger · October 11, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/ethiopia-and-eritrea-each-write-to-the-un-to-say-the-other-s-d67249

## In brief

- Ethiopia told the UN Security Council that Eritrean troops pushed up to 60km into Tigray and invoked self-defence under Article 51
- Eritrea denied any incursion and asked the Council for deterrent measures, calling Ethiopia’s letter a declaration of war
- Government-allied forces report taking Idaga Hamus and Abiy-Adi; ACLED reported Ethiopian drone strikes on Eritrean troops
- Ethiopian troops and allied militias entered Adigrat, about 30km from the Eritrean border, on Saturday
- Analysts warn of possible interstate war, fed by Ethiopia’s push for Red Sea access and the end of diplomatic ties

Ethiopia and Eritrea have each written to the United Nations Security Council to say the other is the aggressor. Meanwhile Ethiopian troops and allied militias are moving north through Tigray toward the Eritrean border, and nobody can independently confirm the claim at the centre of the dispute: that Eritrean soldiers are inside Ethiopia. As [Al Jazeera laid out](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/11/ethiopia-eritrea-ramp-up-rhetoric-are-they-inching-towards-war), the two neighbours fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, fought on the same side in the 2020-2022 Tigray war, and have now cut diplomatic ties. The question analysts are asking is whether they are heading toward war. Some of them think that question is already out of date.

Start with the paperwork, because in international law the paperwork does real work. Article 51 of the UN Charter preserves a state’s “inherent right” of self-defence against armed attack, and it requires a state using that right to report what it is doing to the Security Council. So a self-defence letter is partly a legal filing. It puts on record that whatever comes next is a response and not an opening move. On Friday Ethiopia’s foreign minister, Gedion Timothewos, sent that letter. He said Eritrean troops had pushed as far as 60km (37 miles) into Tigray and called this “a blatant act of aggression that engages Ethiopia’s inherent right to self-defence”. According to [the Associated Press](https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/ethiopia-tells-acting-defense-eritrea-137153814), the letter also called it an “all-out invasion”, accused Eritrea of sending infantry and mechanised units and of supporting, financing, arming and directing insurgents, and said that Eritrean troops remaining on Ethiopian soil left Addis Ababa with “no option but to defend itself against Eritrea.”

![Two cream paper envelopes mounted on tank tracks face each other across a jagged vertical tear exposing red beneath a textured blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/2057226b11adf3300a041d1729707d5468a853b2.webp)

What it did not do was say which measures Ethiopia was taking. Article 51 asks you to report the measures you take. It does not make you name them in advance.

Eritrea answered with a letter of its own on Saturday. Foreign Minister Osman Saleh denied any incursion, called the accusation a pretext for an Ethiopian offensive, and asked the Council to condemn Ethiopia’s “deplorable declaration of war” and take “deterrent measures”. [Reuters reported](https://theprint.in/world/eritrea-asks-un-to-intervene-in-standoff-with-ethiopia/3067980/) that he asked for those measures under Chapter VII of the Charter, which covers everything from sanctions to military force, though he did not say which he wanted. He warned that an Ethiopian offensive would cause “huge devastation to the peoples of both countries and destabilise the whole region”. So each government’s letter treats the other’s letter as the act of aggression. Ethiopia’s position is that the Eritrean troops are the war. Eritrea’s position is that Ethiopia saying there are Eritrean troops is the war.

## What is happening on the ground

The fighting escalated on September 23, when a rebel alliance that includes the Tigray People’s Liberation Front attacked government forces in Tigray, Amhara and Afar. The rebels took Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, and its airport, then announced on October 3 that they were withdrawing. Government-allied forces have [since entered the city](https://rews.cc/a/mekelle-falls-again-and-ethiopia-s-neighbours-weigh-how-far--a576f7). According to Ermiyas Ababu, a commander of the government-allied Tigray Peace Force, government and allied forces took Abiy-Adi in the Tembien area on Thursday afternoon and Idaga Hamus early Friday. Residents told Reuters that Idaga Hamus had changed hands, and Gebremedhin Kihishen, who runs a business in Tembien, said government-allied forces controlled Abiy-Adi. Those accounts do not make clear who held the towns just before the advance, or whether Eritrean troops were involved.

![Three soldiers walk uphill toward stone village houses in a rugged mountain landscape, depicted as a textured collage with torn ochre paper and a rust-red sky.](https://rews.cc/img/31092d6e07e9be73e37a04a15c04dfb7376e7a0f.webp)

Most of the evidence for an Eritrean presence comes from interested parties. Ermiyas has said, citing reports from his own personnel, that Eritrean forces entered Adigrat on Tuesday and Idaga Hamus on Wednesday. Al Jazeera could not verify that. The US-based monitor ACLED, which has no stake in the fight, reported that Eritrean troops crossed near Zalambessa and were hit by Ethiopian drones as they advanced toward Idaga Hamus. Reuters reported that, according to ACLED, the Eritrean forces then pulled back from positions near Adigrat. Eritrea has not commented on that. It denies all of Addis Ababa’s allegations, none of which have been independently verified.

On Saturday, government troops and allied militias entered Adigrat, a strategic city about 30km (19 miles) from the border. Three residents confirmed this to Reuters, and footage verified by Reuters showed pro-government militia members walking through the city. AP footage showed Ethiopian military vehicles arriving, with some residents welcoming them. Explosions and possible drone strikes have been reported nearby.

## The sea

The Tigray fighting sits on top of an older argument. Relations improved after Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018, and Eritrea fought alongside federal forces against the TPLF, its long-time enemy, in a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and was marked by allegations of massacres, sexual violence and widespread hunger. The November 2022 Pretoria agreement ended that war, but Eritrea was not a party to it, and relations went downhill from there. Ethiopia is landlocked, and Abiy said again on Monday that it must have access to the Red Sea. Eritrea suspects that what Ethiopia actually wants is its port of Assab.

![A torn-paper collage shows a large mountain-textured key pointing toward a keyhole in a dark rocky strip beside a red sea and distant harbor crane.](https://rews.cc/img/2d5d0e120e4ff6c5f9a857ca552c36eb7c8aebfc.webp)

Hossamaldeen Ibrahim of the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute told Al Jazeera that both countries’ accounts contain “verifiable elements”, and that “the danger lies in the fact that each side now treats the other’s narrative as existential.” In his view they are past “inching” toward anything: “The situation has entered a high-risk phase of limited but direct military confrontation with a real possibility of rapid escalation into interstate war.” He said the break in diplomatic relations removed the “last formal mechanism for crisis management”, and that Ethiopia’s advance toward the border raises the risk of “miscalculation”. The break came [after Ethiopia expelled 10 Eritrean diplomats](https://rews.cc/a/eritrea-severs-all-diplomatic-ties-with-ethiopia-after-10-of-d0af93).

Tom Gardner, a correspondent for *The Economist*, described the wartime alliance as an exception built only on shared hostility to the TPLF. “The Ethiopian government’s strategic goal number one is access to the Red Sea, but also removing Eritrea’s government from the picture,” he said, adding: “It’s very much looking like the most dangerous moment for the region since that 1998 to 2000 war.”

Professor Matthias Rompel of Justus-Liebig-University Giessen was more careful about the evidence. He said the alleged incursions, the scale of Eritrea’s involvement, and particularly the claim that Asmara is orchestrating the rebellion “remain difficult to substantiate independently.” He linked Ethiopia’s search for the sea, Eritrea’s worries about its sovereignty and Egypt’s rivalry with Ethiopia over the Nile, and warned of consequences for Sudan, Somalia and Red Sea security. He does not think the main danger is a deliberate decision to go to war. He thinks it is that “military miscalculations, mutual distrust and domestic political pressures could trigger a further escalation neither side can easily control.” A wider war is not inevitable, he said, “but the space for diplomatic de-escalation is rapidly narrowing.”

The two governments no longer have embassies in each other’s capitals. Right now, their letters to the Security Council are the only formal correspondence they have.