Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa, 1996–2026

Research cut-off: 10 September 2026. This report treats the Horn as an interconnected security system comprising Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Kenya, with Yemen included where developments across the Red Sea materially affect Horn security. Because some 2026 events remain fluid and because casualty, displacement and territorial-control data are often incomplete or politically contested, figures are identified as estimates or attributed to their reporting institutions where necessary.

Executive summary

Over the three decades since 1996, the Horn of Africa has moved through three overlapping security eras. The first was dominated by conventional interstate and center–periphery wars: the Eritrea–Ethiopia war of 1998–2000, Sudan’s north–south war and Darfur, and Somalia’s prolonged state collapse. The second, from roughly the mid-2000s through the late 2010s, increasingly centered on transnational jihadism, piracy, peace-support operations, externally sponsored counterterrorism and negotiated political settlements. The third, beginning around 2020, has combined renewed large-scale warfare—Tigray, Sudan and deteriorating South Sudanese stability—with drone warfare, fragmented armed movements, port and maritime geopolitics, climate shocks and sharper Gulf/Middle Eastern competition. The global environment itself has become less permissive for peace: UCDP recorded 65 state-based armed conflicts in 2025, the highest annual number since its records began in 1946, with roughly 244,600 deaths from organized violence worldwide.

The clearest strategic lesson is that sovereignty, functioning states and legitimate national institutions remain the indispensable foundations of regional peace. Attempts to substitute external security guarantees, proxy relationships or elite agreements for durable national institutions have repeatedly produced fragile outcomes. The 2000 Algiers Agreement formally terminated the Eritrea–Ethiopia war and established binding boundary mechanisms; the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission later issued its final and binding delimitation. Yet prolonged non-implementation helped produce nearly two decades of “no war, no peace” before the 2018 rapprochement. By 2026, relations had deteriorated sharply again, with Ethiopia publicly accusing Eritrea of military aggression and support for armed groups—allegations requiring attribution and which Eritrea did not publicly accept in the reporting cited here.  The lesson is not that borders are obsolete, but the opposite: internationally recognized boundaries and sovereign consent must be respected and institutionalized rather than treated as temporary political bargains.

Ethiopia’s internal trajectory has become one of the region’s principal security variables. The 2020–2022 Tigray war ended as a major conventional conflict with the African Union-brokered Pretoria cessation-of-hostilities agreement of 2 November 2022, which provided for permanent cessation, humanitarian access, restoration of federal authority and disarmament arrangements. Implementation nevertheless remained incomplete, particularly over contested territory, disarmament and political authority. Renewed clashes and political confrontation in Tigray during 2026 therefore constitute a serious warning sign. Meanwhile, armed conflict between federal forces and Fano formations has persisted in Amhara since 2023, and the Oromo Liberation Army insurgency continues despite reported weakening.

Somalia illustrates both the achievements and limits of long-term internationally supported state reconstruction. Since the 2006–2007 escalation and the deployment of AMISOM, the Somali federal system has been rebuilt sufficiently to sustain national institutions and internationally recognized governments, but al-Shabaab retains the ability to govern, tax, recruit and attack in significant areas. The UN described al-Shabaab in late 2025 as the greatest threat to Somalia and the broader region; the same reporting noted an expanding Islamic State-Somalia presence and continuing al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya. The AU security architecture evolved from AMISOM to ATMIS and, on 1 January 2025, to AUSSOM, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 2767.  Funding, Somali force-generation, federal–member-state tensions and the resilience of al-Shabaab remain central constraints.

Sudan is the region’s gravest active conflict. The April 2023 war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces emerged directly from the failure of Sudan’s post-Bashir transition and, more specifically, the unresolved question of how an autonomous paramilitary organization would be integrated into a single national military chain of command. By September 2026, UN investigators were reporting that foreign weapons, drones, personnel and financing networks were helping sustain the conflict; more than 14 million people had been displaced according to reporting on the UN fact-finding mission. Both camps and associated forces face grave allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human-rights law. External-support claims are particularly contested: UN investigators have identified networks allegedly benefiting the RSF, including links through the UAE, Chad, Libya and elsewhere, while implicated governments have denied improper military support.

South Sudan demonstrates the limits of peace agreements that are not accompanied by implementation of security-sector reform. The 2018 Revitalized Agreement remains the central legal-political framework, but unification of forces, command reform and political transition have repeatedly been delayed. Violence around Nasir in 2025, escalating tension between President Salva Kiir’s government and forces associated with Riek Machar, renewed violence in Jonglei and warnings from the UN in 2026 suggest a return toward large-scale conflict remains possible. Elections were scheduled for 22 December 2026 as of the research cut-off, but legal, security and logistical conditions were deeply contested.

The Red Sea has changed from a peripheral security theater into one of the central organizing spaces of Horn geopolitics. Bab el-Mandeb links the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and Suez route. Houthi attacks beginning in late 2023 caused vessels to divert around Africa and raised insurance, fuel and transit costs; by September 2026, Houthi forces had seized Mocha in Yemen and were positioned closer to Bab el-Mandeb and the Hanish island area, sharply increasing the strategic significance of the Eritrean and Djiboutian shores opposite Yemen. Reuters estimated in September 2026 that roughly 7% of global oil output normally passes through Bab el-Mandeb.

Djibouti consequently remains disproportionately important. Its location has made it a hub for American, Chinese, French, Japanese and Italian military facilities and for counterterrorism, maritime-security and evacuation operations. China’s support base, operational since 2017, was its first acknowledged overseas military support facility, while the United States’ Camp Lemonnier has served as the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa and as a major platform for regional counterterrorism operations.

Climate change and environmental shocks should not be treated as autonomous “causes of war.” Rather, drought, flooding and land degradation amplify pre-existing governance, livelihood and political vulnerabilities. IGAD notes that roughly 70% of its region is arid or semi-arid and subject to recurrent drought and highly variable rainfall. The 2020–2023 drought devastated pastoral and agro-pastoral systems in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya and was followed in many places by destructive flooding. Such shocks become security problems when institutions cannot peacefully regulate access to grazing land, water, markets and mobility routes.

Humanitarian indicators demonstrate the cumulative effect. In 2026, Sudan remained one of the world’s largest displacement crises; Somalia faced millions experiencing acute food insecurity amid drought, conflict and declining aid; and South Sudan had roughly 10 million people requiring humanitarian assistance, with more than 7.5 million facing severe food insecurity according to 2026 reporting. Humanitarian workers themselves were increasingly targeted or unable to operate.

The central policy implication is that the Horn does not primarily need another layer of externally designed regional architecture. It needs stronger sovereign states governed through legitimate institutions, followed by deeper regional cooperation among those states. Priorities should be: preventing renewed Eritrea–Ethiopia confrontation; preserving the Pretoria agreement and preventing another northern Ethiopian war; establishing an enforceable Sudanese ceasefire and ending external military resupply; preventing the collapse of the South Sudan agreement; stabilizing the financing and accountability of AUSSOM while transferring capability to Somali institutions; protecting freedom of navigation through Bab el-Mandeb; and strengthening African-led mediation under the AU and IGAD without allowing either institution to become an arena for interstate rivalry.

Three decades in one view

The thirty-year period is best understood as a sequence of overlapping conflict systems rather than unrelated national crises.

A useful way to visualize the strategic evolution is:

The numerical global trend is also worsening. UCDP recorded 61 state-based armed conflicts in 2024 and 65 in 2025; 2025 was the highest since the dataset began. Finalized UCDP annual data for 2026 were not yet available at the research cut-off, so a purported “2026 conflict total” would be premature.

Interpretive point: the Horn has not experienced a linear transition from war to peace. The locus of organized violence has repeatedly moved—from Eritrea–Ethiopia and Sudan’s north–south war, to Somalia and Darfur, to South Sudan, back to Ethiopia, and then to Sudan—while armed networks, refugees, weapons and diplomatic rivalries have crossed borders. That makes national resilience, rather than abstract regional integration alone, the essential building block of sustainable regional security.

Country trajectories

Eritrea. Eritrea’s central security experience during this period is the 1998–2000 war with Ethiopia and the prolonged failure to fully translate the Algiers settlement into normalized relations. The Agreement established mechanisms to settle the boundary and compensation claims, and UNMEE was authorized to monitor the cessation arrangements. The Boundary Commission’s determination was intended to be final and binding, but political non-implementation produced a long militarized stalemate.

The 2018 Asmara rapprochement restored diplomatic relations and formally ended the state of war. UN sanctions imposed in 2009 were removed later that year. Yet the reconciliation rested heavily on leadership-level understandings rather than a dense institutional architecture of bilateral trade, border governance, parliamentary ties and permanent dispute-resolution mechanisms. The deterioration that followed the Tigray war demonstrates the vulnerability of elite-centered peace.

By February 2026, Ethiopia publicly accused Eritrea of military aggression, occupation of Ethiopian territory and backing armed groups; Ethiopia simultaneously said it remained open to dialogue. These are Ethiopian allegations, not neutral findings, and should not be reported as established fact. What is established is the sharp deterioration in interstate relations. Any renewed military confrontation would be exceptionally dangerous because of the countries’ long border, the legacy of the 1998–2000 conflict, unsettled post-Tigray questions and proximity to the Red Sea.

A durable Eritrea–Ethiopia settlement should therefore be grounded in mutual sovereignty, the recognized international boundary, non-interference and voluntary economic negotiation. Ethiopia’s commercial interest in diversified sea access is legitimate as an economic objective; it cannot constitute a legal entitlement to Eritrean territory or coastline. Similarly, Eritrea’s long-term security is better served by strong sovereign institutions, economically useful ports and predictable commercial arrangements than by renewed militarization of the border.

Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s security challenge over the past decade has progressively shifted from interstate concerns to the management of internal political order. The 2020–2022 Tigray war was among the world’s deadliest recent conflicts, but its total mortality remains intensely contested because researchers variously count battle deaths, massacres, hunger, health-system collapse and excess mortality. Event datasets such as UCDP are valuable for comparison but systematically capture documented violent deaths rather than every indirect conflict death; scholarship on under-reporting cautions against treating any event-based figure as a complete mortality count.

The Pretoria agreement dramatically reduced large-scale warfare, but it did not settle every underlying issue. Disarmament, disputed western Tigray territories, the return of displaced communities and federal–Tigrayan political arrangements remain sensitive. Fighting in disputed areas re-emerged in early 2026, while TPLF leaders later announced moves challenging aspects of the post-war political settlement.

In Amhara, federal forces and Fano formations have fought since 2023. Documentation is difficult because communications restrictions and insecurity constrain monitoring; Ethiopia’s human-rights commission and international reporting have attributed civilian abuses to multiple sides. In Oromia, the federal government continues fighting the OLA, with civilians exposed to killings, abductions and disruptions to public services.

The deeper problem is not “ethnicity” in isolation. Ethiopia’s constitutional multinational federal order makes identity, territory, language, administrative boundaries and political representation inseparable from struggles over state authority. Security deteriorates when political disputes over those questions are militarized and when national or regional forces cannot be held to consistent legal standards.

Somalia. Somalia entered the period already without a functioning national state. Internationally supported transitional arrangements, the 2004 federal process, Ethiopian intervention in 2006, and deployment of AMISOM from 2007 gradually rebuilt a national institutional core. Yet al-Shabaab adapted from territorial insurgency to a hybrid organization combining guerrilla warfare, terrorism, taxation, extortion, parallel courts and local governance. By late 2025 UN experts continued to call it the greatest threat to Somalia and the region.

The AU mission evolved from AMISOM to ATMIS in 2022 and AUSSOM in 2025. Resolution 2767 authorized AUSSOM to support Somali forces while security responsibilities move gradually to national institutions. The repeated postponement of a full AU withdrawal shows that “transition” cannot be measured simply by handing bases to Somali units; it depends on force generation, logistics, command-and-control, revenue, justice institutions and the political legitimacy of the federal settlement.

The 2023 lifting of the decades-old arms embargo on the Somali federal government removed an important constraint on government procurement, but a 2024 incident in which militia seized heavy weapons from a convoy illustrated the continuing danger of diversion in a fragmented security environment.

Somalia’s security is also shaped by disputes that are not reducible to al-Shabaab. Tensions between Mogadishu and federal member states, Somaliland’s unresolved international status, Puntland’s high degree of autonomy and the SSC-Khaatumo/Las Anod conflict all demonstrate that state-building remains unfinished. The January 2024 Ethiopia–Somaliland memorandum turned this domestic constitutional geography into a regional interstate crisis. Türkiye’s December 2024 Ankara mediation reduced the immediate danger by affirming Somalia’s sovereignty while providing for negotiations over commercially negotiated Ethiopian maritime access.

Djibouti. Djibouti has been comparatively stable domestically but highly exposed strategically. Its 2008 clash with Eritrea showed that even a small border confrontation can acquire broader international significance because both countries sit on the approaches to Bab el-Mandeb. The UN Security Council became directly involved in the dispute, while Qatar subsequently played a mediating role.

Djibouti has also transformed geography into state revenue and security leverage by hosting foreign forces. The US operates Camp Lemonnier; China opened its first overseas support base there in 2017; France maintains its historic presence; Japan and Italy also operate facilities. These bases provide deterrence, maritime-security capacity, counterterrorism infrastructure and economic rents, but they also place Djibouti inside US–China and broader great-power competition.

Sudan. Sudan has experienced the most profound sequence of conflict transformations in the region. The 2005 CPA ended the long north–south war and eventually enabled South Sudan’s independence. It did not resolve Darfur, the status of other marginalized regions or the deeper political economy of an authoritarian military state. The 2020 Juba Peace Agreement incorporated important armed groups after Bashir’s fall but remained incomplete and excluded or failed to settle all armed constituencies.

The SAF–RSF war that began in April 2023 represents, in part, the catastrophic failure of security-sector integration. Sudan had two large coercive structures with separate leaderships, economic interests and external connections. Attempts to negotiate the RSF’s absorption into a unified military became inseparable from the question of who would control the state. Once political transition collapsed, this dual military architecture became a mechanism for civil war.

The conflict has since internationalized. The UN fact-finding process reported in September 2026 that sophisticated drones, foreign personnel, weapons and regional networks were prolonging the war. Allegations concerning UAE-linked support for the RSF have been repeatedly denied by the UAE; evidence concerning multiple external supply chains remains an active investigative field and should not be simplified into a single-proxy-war narrative.

The SAF recaptured much of Khartoum by 2025, but the RSF retained major strength in western Sudan; El Fasher fell in October 2025, and the UN Security Council subsequently sanctioned RSF commanders linked to atrocities. In 2026 the RSF-backed camp was also building parallel administrative and monetary structures, increasing the danger of de facto territorial partition even without formal secession.

South Sudan. Independence in 2011 was the culmination of the CPA but not the completion of state-building. Civil war from 2013 fragmented the SPLM/A, militarized communal identities and devastated state institutions. The September 2018 R-ARCSS provided a second major opportunity by establishing power-sharing and a program to unify security forces.

Implementation has remained the fundamental weakness. The peace agreement envisaged unified national forces, but force training, deployment, command structures, financing and demobilization repeatedly lagged behind political deadlines. The consequences were visible in 2025–2026 when fighting around Nasir, detention of opposition figures and government–opposition military mobilization led IGAD and the UN to warn that the country was moving toward renewed war.

The planned December 2026 election therefore carries both opportunity and danger. Elections held without adequate security arrangements, political freedoms, dispute-resolution procedures and credible electoral administration can become a conflict trigger rather than a peacebuilding milestone. As of July 2026, those prerequisites remained heavily contested.

Kenya. Kenya is both a relative anchor of regional diplomacy and a participant in regional conflicts. The 2007–2008 post-election crisis demonstrated the danger of institutional breakdown inside Kenya itself; AU-supported mediation led by Kofi Annan helped create the coalition settlement and the reform process that ultimately contributed to the 2010 constitutional order.

Kenya’s 2011 intervention in Somalia transformed its exposure to al-Shabaab. The organization subsequently attacked civilian targets in Kenya and continued cross-border operations in Mandera, Lamu and other areas; UN experts reported an average of roughly six al-Shabaab attacks per month in Kenya during 2025.  Kenya’s longer-term resilience rests partly on stronger institutions and devolution compared with several neighbors, but northeastern border insecurity, communal land/resource disputes and extremist recruitment remain persistent risks.

Yemen and the Red Sea interface. Yemen matters to Horn security because the Bab el-Mandeb strait is a shared security space. Conflict on the Yemeni shore affects Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia almost immediately through shipping, refugee and migration flows, arms routes and foreign military activity. Houthi attacks on shipping beginning in late 2023 forced significant maritime rerouting. By September 2026, Reuters reported that Houthi forces had seized Mocha and were advancing toward positions capable of exerting still greater influence over Bab el-Mandeb; reporting also documented Iranian arms and advisory support while Tehran denied directing Houthi operations.

Actors, institutions and external powers

The Horn is unusual in that national governments, insurgencies, transnational militants, regional organizations, Gulf states and global powers operate in the same relatively compact strategic space.

IGAD. IGAD’s current institutional architecture reflects lessons from three decades of regional conflict. It was established in its present form in 1996, explicitly adding peace and security to the agenda of its drought-focused predecessor. Article 7 of its establishing agreement includes promotion of regional peace and stability and peaceful settlement of interstate and intrastate disputes. Its specialized bodies include CEWARN for early warning, a Security Sector Programme and climate institutions such as ICPAC.

Yet IGAD’s strength—ownership by the region—is also its weakness. Member states are often parties, troop contributors, patrons or direct stakeholders in the conflicts IGAD is asked to mediate. Eritrea’s withdrawal from IGAD in December 2025 further reduced the institution’s representativeness; IGAD’s 2026 website listed seven members rather than Eritrea.

African Union. The AU possesses a more developed normative security architecture. The Constitutive Act includes the promotion of peace and security and, unusually for an interstate organization, establishes principles permitting intervention in grave circumstances. The 2002 Protocol establishing the Peace and Security Council created the core of the African Peace and Security Architecture: the PSC, Continental Early Warning System, Panel of the Wise, African Standby Force and associated Peace Fund.

Its record in the Horn is mixed but consequential. The AU sustained AMISOM/ATMIS/AUSSOM when Somalia could not secure its territory independently and brokered the 2022 Pretoria agreement. The limitation is not absence of mechanisms but political unity, predictable financing and enforcement capacity.

United Nations. The UN has been central through peacekeeping, sanctions, humanitarian coordination and Security Council diplomacy: UNMEE on the Eritrea–Ethiopia frontier; UNMIS and then UNMISS in the Sudan/South Sudan theater; UN sanctions panels on Somalia and Sudan; support to AU Somalia missions; and extensive humanitarian operations. Security Council authority has repeatedly been decisive, but permanent-member divisions and host-state consent can restrict enforcement.

United States. US strategy since 2001 has emphasized counterterrorism, maritime access, support for Somali security institutions, sanctions, humanitarian assistance and diplomatic crisis management. Camp Lemonnier became the regional military hub of CJTF-HOA; US intelligence, training and airstrikes remain important in Somalia and Puntland.  The structural risk is that tactical counterterrorism success can outrun political state-building: militants can be removed without resolving the governance conditions allowing new networks to regenerate.

China. China’s most visible hard-security footprint is its Djibouti support base, opened in 2017 to support naval operations, peacekeeping logistics, evacuation contingencies and protection of overseas interests. Its location close to US and other foreign facilities epitomizes the Horn’s integration into global power competition.  Beijing’s broader influence derives as much from infrastructure, trade and financing as from direct military activity.

European Union. The EU’s regional role combines humanitarian/development financing, support for African security missions, capacity-building and maritime security. European naval anti-piracy deployments were an important component of the multinational response to Somali piracy; Djibouti served as an important operational node.  The return of piracy in 2026 demonstrates the danger of assuming maritime threats are permanently solved once naval attention shifts elsewhere.

Gulf and middle powers. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Türkiye increasingly operate as security and diplomatic actors rather than merely aid donors. Qatar mediated the Eritrea–Djibouti dispute; Türkiye has developed deep security ties with Somalia and mediated the Ethiopia–Somalia crisis; Gulf port investments and military access have elevated Red Sea coastlines as strategic assets. In Sudan, alleged external material support to belligerents has become one of the most serious threats to diplomatic settlement, though attribution requires careful evidence and governments accused of supplying the RSF have denied wrongdoing.

The resulting security system can be conceptualized as follows:

Structural drivers and human and economic costs

Political exclusion and identity. Ethnic, clan and communal identities matter throughout the Horn, but they are most dangerous when connected to unequal state power, territorial administration and security competition. Ethiopia’s multinational federation, Somalia’s clan-mediated political settlement, South Sudan’s SPLM fragmentation, Darfur’s land and identity politics and Kenya’s electoral history all demonstrate that identity becomes violent primarily through institutions and political mobilization rather than through automatic ancient hostility.

This distinction matters for policy. “Ethnic conflict” can become an analytical shortcut that hides disputes over land, citizenship, administrative boundaries, military command, access to state revenue and political representation. Durable peace therefore requires constitutional and institutional settlement rather than simply intercommunal dialogue.

Center–periphery inequality. The region’s longest wars repeatedly emerged where peripheral communities viewed the central state as extractive, exclusionary or militarized: southern Sudan before 2005, Darfur, parts of Ethiopia, Somalia’s peripheral federal politics and northern Kenya. Peace settlements that redistribute offices without addressing local administration, land tenure, fiscal relations and security often defer rather than solve the conflict.

Resource competition. Land, water, grazing corridors, minerals, oil and port access are strategic because the state systems governing them are weak or contested. In South Sudan and Sudan, oil has simultaneously financed states and created infrastructure dependencies across the international border. In pastoral zones of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, drought-driven livestock movement can generate conflict where customary routes are blocked by administrative borders, settlement, armed groups or commercial land use.

Climate shocks. IGAD describes the region as predominantly arid/semi-arid and subject to recurrent drought and rainfall variability. The 2020–2023 drought affected Somalia, southeastern Ethiopia and northern/eastern Kenya particularly severely; subsequent floods demonstrated the “weather whiplash” challenge facing pastoral and agricultural communities.  Climate change should therefore be treated as a threat multiplier interacting with weak governance, poverty, mobility restrictions and violence—not as a deterministic explanation for war.

Migration. Migration is both an adaptation strategy and a security/humanitarian issue. The Eastern Route from Ethiopia and the Horn through Djibouti and Yemen toward Gulf labor markets remains one of the world’s most dangerous migration corridors. UN/IOM reporting documented a sharp increase in movements toward the Gulf during the recent drought period, driven by economic hardship and climate pressures as well as political insecurity.  Attempts to securitize all migration can be counterproductive: legal labor mobility and cross-border pastoral movement can relieve economic pressure when properly governed.

Arms proliferation and technological change. The Horn’s wars are increasingly shaped by commercial drones, precision or quasi-precision strike systems, cheap surveillance technology and diversified arms suppliers. Sudan’s 2026 conflict illustrates this clearly: UN investigators reported extensive foreign weapons and drone support, while more than 1,000 people were reportedly killed by drone attacks during the first half of 2026.  In Somalia, lifting restrictions on government arms procurement increases sovereign capability but places greater importance on stockpile control, registration and end-use monitoring after incidents of militia weapons capture.

Terrorism. Al-Shabaab remains the region’s most durable terrorist-insurgent organization. Its persistence is explained not only by military capacity but by taxation, dispute resolution, intimidation, clan negotiation and exploitation of governance vacuums. UN experts’ 2025 assessment that it remained the leading threat to Somalia and the region, alongside an expanding IS-Somalia presence, shows that counterterrorism remains necessary but cannot substitute for legitimate local governance.

Humanitarian consequences. Sudan illustrates the scale of potential systemic collapse. By September 2026, reporting on UN investigators placed displacement above 14 million. Electricity generation and grid infrastructure had been severely damaged, with reporting in September 2026 estimating billions of dollars in power-sector losses and major declines in available generating capacity.

Somalia faced another severe food-security emergency in 2026. In February, roughly 4.4 million people were projected to face crisis-level hunger as drought, conflict and declining humanitarian financing converged; later reporting in 2026 put the number experiencing acute food insecurity around six million, alongside severe child malnutrition.

South Sudan’s humanitarian system was similarly under pressure. Reporting in August 2026 put the number needing humanitarian assistance at around 10 million and those facing severe food insecurity above 7.5 million, while at least 36 aid workers and contractors had reportedly been killed since the beginning of the year.

These displacement data are not perfectly comparable: some are total stocks, some measure new displacement, and definitions and access differ. A simplified representation illustrates magnitude rather than a standardized league table:

The Sudan figure is a broad conflict-displacement stock; the South Sudan figure refers to a recent episode; and the Somalia figure refers to drought-linked displacement in 2022. They therefore must not be added together or interpreted as a harmonized 2026 dataset.

Economic damage. Conflict reduces production, destroys infrastructure, raises sovereign risk and diverts fiscal resources to security. Sudan’s war has degraded power, transport, agriculture and formal commerce. South Sudan is uniquely exposed because its oil export system depends on infrastructure running through Sudan; disruption to fields and pipeline hubs therefore transmits Sudanese warfare directly into South Sudan’s fiscal system.

The indirect regional costs are equally important. Refugee-hosting communities face food, housing and public-service pressure; military spending competes with health and infrastructure budgets; disrupted livestock corridors destroy household capital; and insecurity raises transport and insurance costs. For coastal states, maritime insecurity imposes another layer of economic risk.

Red Sea and maritime security

The Horn’s maritime geography is fundamental. Eritrea has a long Red Sea coastline and the Dahlak archipelago; Djibouti sits immediately beside Bab el-Mandeb; Somalia extends along the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean; Sudan possesses a substantial Red Sea coast and Port Sudan; Kenya links the Horn to Indian Ocean transport routes; Yemen sits directly opposite Eritrea and Djibouti.

A regional political map is useful for understanding how short the distances are between conflicts that are often analyzed separately.

Web map reference: Horn of Africa political map. The graphic is geographic orientation only; map boundaries and labels should not be interpreted as legal determinations of disputed territories.

Bab el-Mandeb. The strait separates the Yemeni coast from the Djibouti/Eritrea side of the Red Sea entrance and connects the Indian Ocean–Gulf of Aden system to Suez. Reuters reported in September 2026 that roughly 7% of global oil output normally traverses the chokepoint. The exact share varies with commodity definitions, market conditions and rerouting, so it should not be mistaken for a fixed structural percentage.

Web map reference: Bab al-Mandeb shipping lanes, originally produced in the context of Red Sea shipping disruptions.

The strategic chain is straightforward:

The Houthi effect. From late 2023, attacks on shipping changed carrier behavior and revived the strategic value of alternative routes around the Cape of Good Hope. By September 2026, the security issue had become more serious because Houthi forces reportedly seized the port of Mocha and advanced nearer the Bab el-Mandeb/Hanish area. Reuters reported concurrent rises in oil prices and concerns about Saudi and international shipping.

For Eritrea and Djibouti this has direct implications. A destabilized Bab el-Mandeb increases the strategic value of their territory, ports and airspace, but it also increases exposure to great-power rivalry, missiles and drones, intelligence operations, refugee flows and pressure for foreign military access. National sovereignty therefore becomes more—not less—important as geopolitical competition rises.

Somali piracy. International naval deployments, improved shipping practices and changes onshore dramatically reduced piracy after its 2008–2012 peak. That success proved reversible. Reporting in September 2026 described eight hijackings since April and linked the resurgence partly to the diversion of naval attention toward wider Red Sea and Middle Eastern contingencies.  The important lesson is that piracy is ultimately an onshore governance problem with an offshore manifestation. Warships can suppress attacks; they cannot by themselves produce coastal livelihoods, courts, policing and accountable administration.

Djibouti’s military concentration. The coexistence of American, Chinese, French, Japanese and Italian facilities gives Djibouti an unusual degree of strategic protection and leverage. China’s facility supports Gulf of Aden operations and overseas logistics; Camp Lemonnier supports US regional missions.  But concentration creates escalation risk: a confrontation between external powers elsewhere can rapidly affect Djibouti even when Djibouti itself is not a belligerent.

Ports as geopolitical instruments. The strategic value of Assab, Massawa, Djibouti/Doraleh, Berbera, Bosaso, Port Sudan, Mogadishu and Mombasa is no longer primarily local. Ports connect landlocked economies with world markets and create leverage for outside investors and governments. That does not erase sovereignty. Port access is most stabilizing when based on transparent commercial agreements between consenting sovereign authorities; using maritime access claims to challenge borders or political status creates precisely the insecurity that trade corridors are intended to solve. The Ankara Declaration’s effort to move Ethiopia–Somalia discussions toward consensual commercial access under Somali sovereignty is therefore a more durable model than unilateral territorial arrangements.

Peacebuilding, security-sector reform and legal frameworks

The region has accumulated a substantial peace-and-security legal architecture. The problem is not lack of agreements; it is implementation, institutionalization and enforcement.

Security-sector reform is the decisive recurring variable. Sudan is the clearest negative case: an army and autonomous paramilitary force were expected to coexist during a political transition while the timetable and chain of command for integration remained disputed. When the political bargain collapsed, the two security structures became rival armies.

South Sudan displays the same risk in slower motion. R-ARCSS’s security arrangements sought to transform rival forces into nationally unified structures, but delayed training, deployment and command integration preserved separate political-military networks. The renewed crisis of 2025–26 shows that an agreement cannot become self-sustaining while political leaders retain independent coercive instruments.

Somalia’s problem is different but related. There are national forces, federal-member-state forces, clan militias, intelligence units and foreign-trained elite formations. The challenge is to build a nationally accountable security system without destroying effective local security capacity. AUSSOM should therefore be measured by Somali institutional capability—not by a calendar-driven troop-withdrawal target alone.

Ethiopia’s post-Pretoria challenge includes DDR, political reintegration and the establishment of a single lawful security order while managing regional constitutional authority. Disarmament that is perceived as one-sided, or political settlement without physical security for returning displaced populations, risks reproducing mobilization incentives.

The Eritrea–Ethiopia experience adds a different lesson: legal finality requires political implementation. An arbitration decision can establish where a border lies, but lasting peace also requires demarcation, normalized crossing procedures, commerce, communication and permanent diplomatic mechanisms. Conversely, political reconciliation without clear institutional foundations can deteriorate once leadership calculations change.

Peacekeeping also has limits. UNMISS can protect civilians and deter some violence but cannot implement South Sudan’s political settlement on behalf of national leaders. AUSSOM can hold territory and support Somali troops but cannot create national political consensus. Maritime coalitions can deter piracy but cannot govern Somali coastal communities. The key measure of an international mission should therefore be whether it increases sovereign institutional capability faster than it creates dependency.

Accountability is part of security-sector reform, not an optional human-rights supplement. Impunity for attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement and unlawful detention reduces trust in state institutions and strengthens armed recruitment narratives. This applies to state and non-state forces alike. Sudan’s atrocities, Ethiopia’s multiple internal conflicts, South Sudan’s communal violence and al-Shabaab’s systematic attacks on civilians demonstrate the security cost of weak accountability.

Policy priorities and research gaps

Prevent another Eritrea–Ethiopia war before crisis diplomacy becomes necessary. The AU and a mutually acceptable group of African intermediaries should support a quiet bilateral mechanism focused narrowly on border security, military deconfliction, implementation of existing legal obligations, non-interference and restoration of routine diplomatic communication. Maritime and port questions should be discussed separately as voluntary economic arrangements and must not be allowed to blur recognized sovereignty. The costs of the 1998–2000 war and the deterioration visible in 2026 make preventive diplomacy far less costly than post-war mediation.

Preserve the Pretoria settlement while broadening implementation. Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigrayan authorities should prioritize agreed security provisions, safe return and property questions, humanitarian reconstruction, territorial-dispute mechanisms and political normalization. The AU should maintain an active implementation role rather than treating signature of the 2022 agreement as mission accomplished. Renewed clashes in 2026 demonstrate that incomplete peace implementation can reverse.

Treat Amhara and Oromia as political-security problems, not solely counterinsurgencies. Military operations can constrain armed groups but are unlikely to produce durable peace without credible political channels, civilian protection and clarity concerning regional/federal authority. Information restrictions should be minimized because lack of independent reporting worsens both impunity and misinformation.

In Sudan, prioritize an externally enforced de-escalation compact alongside a Sudanese political process. A ceasefire is unlikely to hold if external actors continue to supply weapons, drones, money or personnel. The immediate diplomatic agenda should therefore include transparent monitoring of external military transfers, sanctions against verified violators, protection of humanitarian corridors and a prohibition on recognition of rival territorial governments as substitutes for a national settlement. UN investigators’ 2026 findings make the external-resupply dimension impossible to treat as secondary.

At the same time, a settlement confined to Burhan and Hemedti would reproduce the structural defect of earlier transitions by reducing Sudan’s political future to negotiations among armed elites. Civilian political organizations, professional associations, displaced communities, Darfuri constituencies, women and local peace actors require meaningful representation.

In South Sudan, security unification must precede a high-risk electoral contest. The country’s leaders and IGAD should establish measurable benchmarks for command integration, opposition political freedom, electoral dispute mechanisms and security around voting before treating December 2026 as an end in itself. Elections that merely convert unresolved armed competition into a winner-take-all political contest would increase the risk of war.

Make AUSSOM a capability-transfer mission, not an indefinitely renamed peace operation. Benchmarks should measure Somali logistics, battalion readiness, police coverage, justice services, ammunition accountability, local taxation and civilian protection—not only territory handed over. The Security Council and AU also need predictable financing; repeated uncertainty over mission resources risks creating precisely the security vacuum al-Shabaab can exploit.

Attack al-Shabaab’s governance advantage as well as its fighters. Military operations should be integrated with credible district administration, predictable taxation, land and commercial dispute resolution, anti-corruption measures and local reconciliation. The strategic contest is not only over who controls a village militarily; it is over which authority can credibly adjudicate disputes and protect commerce. UN assessments that al-Shabaab remains the region’s most serious jihadist threat after nearly two decades of military pressure demonstrate the inadequacy of kinetic strategy alone.

Protect sovereign port arrangements from zero-sum geopolitics. Ethiopia requires efficient trade corridors; Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia/Somaliland and Kenya possess valuable maritime infrastructure. Commercial access should create interdependence, not territorial claims. The Ankara principle—commercial access negotiated with the recognized sovereign state—is a useful starting point where applicable.  For Eritrea specifically, Assab and Massawa can become major economic assets for regional trade only through arrangements freely accepted by Eritrea and compatible with Eritrean sovereignty.

Create a Red Sea–Horn maritime deconfliction architecture without sacrificing national control. Existing naval actors should improve information sharing on piracy, missiles, drones, trafficking and search-and-rescue while coastal states retain sovereign authority over their ports and territorial waters. The renewed 2026 Somali piracy problem and Houthi advance around Mocha demonstrate that counter-piracy and Red Sea missile security can no longer be treated as separate theaters.

Strengthen IGAD by clarifying when conflicted members should recuse themselves from mediation. Regional ownership is valuable, but a neighboring state that is itself a military or political stakeholder cannot automatically be viewed as a neutral mediator. IGAD should develop clearer conflict-of-interest procedures, professionalize mediation teams and insulate CEWARN analysis from state political pressure. Its existing early-warning and security-sector institutions provide an institutional base for such reform.

Reduce AU mission dependence on ad hoc external financing. African-led security operations are politically more sustainable when African institutions exercise real strategic ownership. That requires a larger predictable African financing contribution alongside UN-assessed or partner support, stronger procurement oversight and more rigorous accountability for peace-support personnel. The AUSSOM transition demonstrates how financing uncertainty can itself become a security risk.

Build climate adaptation around mobility rather than trying to immobilize pastoral populations. Governments should protect cross-border livestock routes, negotiate drought-time grazing arrangements, expand water infrastructure without creating exclusionary control points and integrate customary institutions into local conflict prevention. Since most of the IGAD area is arid or semi-arid, pastoral mobility is an economic adaptation mechanism, not inherently a security threat.

Treat humanitarian access as part of national security. Famine, malnutrition and mass displacement weaken states, generate trafficking and recruitment markets and create long-term regional refugee burdens. Sudan’s massive displacement, Somalia’s 2026 hunger emergency and South Sudan’s deteriorating humanitarian indicators demonstrate that civilian protection and food systems are not peripheral to security strategy.

Invest in independent regional journalism and public evidence systems. Conflict environments in Amhara, Tigray, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia repeatedly generate contradictory casualty and territorial claims. Independent local journalists, satellite verification, forensic documentation and open conflict-data standards are therefore strategic public goods. Information blackouts not only conceal abuses; they impair early warning and allow competing governments and armed groups to construct incompatible narratives.

Several major research gaps remain.

First, there is no single reliable, harmonized annual dataset giving the complete direct and indirect death toll of Horn conflicts from 1996–2026. UCDP provides the most rigorous cross-national event data but deliberately counts documented organized violence under defined criteria; excess mortality from hunger, health-system collapse and displacement requires different epidemiological methods. The Tigray war and current Sudan war are particularly affected by this measurement problem.

Second, current displacement statistics are difficult to compare. Refugee counts, internally displaced-person stocks, new displacement events, disaster displacement and return movements use different denominators and reporting dates. Sudan’s >14 million figure, for example, cannot be directly compared with a short-period estimate of people newly displaced in Jonglei. Future regional analysis should publish harmonized monthly stocks and flows with explicit confidence ranges.

Third, external weapons flows are under-documented. Sudan illustrates the problem most clearly, but the same opacity applies to drones, ammunition and military technology across Ethiopia, Somalia and the Red Sea theater. Supplier-government secrecy, intermediaries, re-export and dual-use technology make open-source attribution difficult. UN investigators’ 2026 Sudan findings provide a foundation, but systematic regional tracking is still weak.

Fourth, there is insufficient empirical research separating climate correlation from conflict causation. Drought and flooding clearly damage livelihoods, but whether they generate violence depends heavily on land institutions, political exclusion, market access, armed-group presence and state response. Policies based on a simplistic “climate causes war” assumption risk misdiagnosing political conflicts. IGAD’s own analysis appropriately emphasizes environmental stress together with political and social tensions.

Fifth, maritime-security research remains overly divided between piracy specialists, Yemen analysts and Horn political researchers. By 2026, these systems are visibly interconnected: Houthi military control on the Yemeni coast, Somali piracy, Djibouti’s foreign bases, Eritrea’s strategic shoreline and Suez-bound commerce all affect the same maritime space.

Finally, the region needs better research on why some peace agreements survive political shocks while others decay. The evidence of 1996–2026 suggests five variables deserve particular attention: inclusion of all significant armed actors; enforceable security arrangements; implementation of legal/territorial commitments; domestic institutional ownership rather than excessive dependence on individual leaders; and economic dividends visible to affected populations. The contrast among Algiers, the Sudan CPA, R-ARCSS, Pretoria and the evolving Somalia security transition indicates that signing agreements is far easier than converting them into durable institutions.

The overarching conclusion of thirty years of Horn history is therefore straightforward: regional peace is most durable when it rests on strong, legitimate and sovereign national institutions that can then cooperate as equals. External actors can mediate, finance, train and deter; they cannot substitute for state legitimacy. Regional organizations can create rules and mechanisms; they cannot compensate indefinitely for unresolved national political orders. And economic integration—from ports to power grids to pastoral corridors—will contribute to peace only where it is built through consent, reciprocity and respect for sovereignty. The Horn’s experience from the Eritrea–Ethiopia war through Somalia’s insurgency, South Sudan’s incomplete transition, Sudan’s catastrophic security-sector collapse and the Red Sea crisis repeatedly reinforces that principle.