Conflict in the Middle East has rattled global markets and injected a dose of uncertainty into geopolitics over the last month. War is always traumatic but this one may have an unexpected consequence. It might have stopped bloodshed on a different continent.
There is compelling evidence that fuel shortages from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz may have propagated a precarious African peace.
Before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global security analysts had been eyeing the prospect of a major land war in a different part of the world: the Horn of Africa.
Landlocked Ethiopia, home to around 130 million people and one of Africa’s strongest economies, has been agitating for sea access. Ethiopia already has a deal to use a port in Somalia’s breakaway state of Somaliland—but that may not be enough for the government in Addis Ababa, which has eyed full sovereignty in a claim to the Red Sea.
Addis has been looking to its neighbor and on-again, off-again enemy, Eritrea, a small pariah state to the east with a relatively long Red Sea coastline. Eritrea is sometimes called Africa’s version of North Korea because of its mandatory conscription and lack of civil society.
Formerly part of Ethiopia, Eritrea fought a three-decade war of independence until it became its own nation in the early 1990s. A two-year bloody border war with its former parent followed shortly after, with fighting mostly stopping in 2000 but leading to a long stalemate until a 2018 peace deal.
Ethiopia and Eritrea later fought together in the 2020-2022 Tigray war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), separatists in a region of northern Ethiopia that borders Eritrea. This largely forgotten war was arguably the 21st century’s deadliest conflict, with a death toll of up to 800,000 lives lost and widespread atrocities.
An expansionist vision of Ethiopia—including access to the sea—under its leader Abiy Ahmed, and Eritrea’s recent friendliness with the TPLF, saw tensions mount dramatically at the start of 2026. Ethiopian forces clashed with the TPLF in January, and in February reports emerged that tens of thousands of Ethiopian troops were mobilized northward, perhaps poised for Eritrea.
The hostilities “threatened to shatter the ‘no-war-no-peace’ situation,” that has existed since the end of the Tigray war, Oxford Analytica’s senior Africa analyst Matt Ward said in February. Oxford Analytica is a geopolitical risk analysis and advisory service owned by Barron’s parent company, Dow Jones
Many analysts expressed a view that it was a matter of when, not if, widespread fighting broke out again in Tigray or across the border into Eritrea. The prospect of land war between the two countries is dire, as each boasts one of Africa’s largest standing armies—perhaps 800,000 fighters in total.
Then the Iran war began.
The United Nations has listed Ethiopia, which imports almost all of its fuel from the Gulf, as one of the most affected countries due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In March, the government rolled out fuel rationing, encouraging citizens to walk amid a growing transportation crisis, and later put nonessential state workers on leave to keep them at home.
Rations have meant Ethiopia’s daily supply of diesel—necessary to support trucks and armored vehicles—has halved, with the government prioritizing who gets fuel. Jet fuel for air forces, too, has become a scarce resource, with the government under pressure to keep stocks for the national carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, an engine of the economy and Africa’s largest airline.
The government has been outspoken about the challenges of organising fuel supply, noting that widespread corruption makes it even more complicated to get fuel where it needs to go. The situation looks to have only worsened, with local media reporting in late March that a shipment of more than 180,000 metric tons of fuel had failed to arrive, heightening supply concerns.
Some analysts had suggested that Ethiopia might take advantage of the Iran war to invade Eritrea and secure sea access—a view expressed by Ethiopia’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, a government-affiliated think tank.
The lack of action from Ethiopia suggests there may be a lack of capacity, not will, to wage war in Tigray or into Eritrea. If that’s the case, the Iran war’s disruption to fuel supply may be to thank for upholding peace—for now.
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com