The leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan jointly called on Sunday for political and peaceful settlements to the wars sweeping their region, from Sudan’s civil war to the escalating conflict in Ethiopia.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s army chief, issued the declaration after meeting in New Alamein City in Egypt, Al Jazeera reported. The four also called for talks to end Sudan’s civil war.
The appeal lands as the fighting in Ethiopia widens, two years after a peace deal ended the civil war of 2020 to 2022. In September the Tigray People’s Liberation Front joined the Alliance for Survival, a seven-group coalition aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and its fighters seized regional airports, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ conflict tracker. Ethiopia’s government, whose troops are on the other side of that fight, was not at Sunday’s meeting.
One signatory sits awkwardly in that picture. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of financing the rebel alliance, and the Ethiopian army chief, Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, blamed Asmara for funding armed groups in his first remarks on the escalation. Mr. Afwerki signed the call for peace anyway.
On the ground, the war is moving fast. Government forces took Mekelle’s airport over the weekend after Tigrayan fighters pulled out of the city, a withdrawal the TPLF described as temporary. Towns along the Amhara-Tigray front have changed hands repeatedly.
Sudan’s own war, burning since April 2023, has shifted toward Kordofan, the site of one in five attacks recorded in the conflict. Mr. al-Burhan, whose army is one of the war’s two main belligerents, signed the appeal for talks.
Analysts at Chatham House warned last week that the fighting in Tigray and neighboring areas may not stay inside Ethiopia’s borders: the spillover the four leaders, in the vaguest of terms, said they want to avoid.