Facing its bleakest nadir in decades, every country in the Horn of Africa is currently grappling with some form of constitutional or succession crisis. Over several years, the region has gradually slid into a state of near-permanent emergency, with armed conflict, major humanitarian disasters, and political instability all rife. In turn, the legitimacy and presence of the 'state' is contracting across the board, driving nearly every debt-saddled regional government to the Gulf for discreet patronage to prop up their fragile ruling coalitions. This combination of state capture and broad insecurity is both compounding and undermining attempts at a coherent regional response to issues such as the war in Sudan.
With political insecurity and conflict simmering across nearly every country in the Horn of Africa, Nairobi's relative stability —barring the fitful Gen Z protests —is a welcome and necessary change for regional elites, compared to the ruins of Khartoum and the insecurity of Juba and Mogadishu. In prominent hotel bars and restaurants across the Kenyan capital, exiled opposition figures routinely gather to discuss their next moves or commiserate about the state of their country and region. The political elites of Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and others have long maintained families and properties in Nairobi's lush neighbourhoods, aware of the need for a potential haven amidst the mercurial politics of their own countries. But with insecurity and political repression rising across much of the Horn, so is the capital flow increasing into Nairobi as growing numbers relocate their wealth-- often illicitly.
The seemingly inexorable slide towards widespread conflict in South Sudan continues to gather pace. In recent weeks, escalating violence between government forces, opposition groups, and various militias has destabilised multiple regions while the fragile national ruling coalition looks ready to splinter-- again. Rising tensions between the two principal signatories of the 2018 peace agreement-- President Salva Kiir and First Vice-President Riek Machar-- and their dominant factions threaten to plunge the volatile country back into widespread violence.
Reports from Ethiopia's western Gambella region suggest a sudden resurgence in cross-border cattle raids from the Murle ethnic group of South Sudan. Communities on either side of the porous border have long wrestled with cyclical cattle invasions, which are a particularly prominent feature of South Sudan's Jonglei region's profound instability. While the recent attack was the first cross-border raid since mid-2023, it is emblematic of the contraction of the Ethiopian state and the bleeding of instability across the Horn of Africa.