Of any region in the world, the Horn of Africa is home to some of the oldest, richest, and varied religious traditions, featuring sites such as the Masjid al-Qiblatayn in Zeila and artefacts from the ancient Axumite kingdom in Tigray. For centuries, faith has and continues to play an integral part in the daily lives of most within the region, with Islam and Christianity the two dominant religions today. And in turn, spiritual life has naturally shaped the politics of the Horn, with elites having long grappled with how best to accommodate, co-opt, or suppress religious movements and identities. Over the centuries, this has encompassed Muslim leaders couching their fight in the rhetoric of jihad as well as the 'civilising' expansion of the Orthodox Christian Ethiopian Emperors into neighbouring regions in the 19th century.
In a triumphant parliamentary address at the beginning of July, Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed announced that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) was finally complete. After well over a decade and USD 4.2 billion spent, GERD is the largest hydroelectric dam on the continent– stretching over a mile wide and 140 metres high in Ethiopia's western Benishangul-Gumuz region on the Blue Nile tributary. And with preparations underway for a likely lavish official inauguration in September, Abiy also took the opportunity to invite the leaders of downstream Egypt and Sudan. Striking a conciliatory tone, Abiy pledged that "the Renaissance Dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity" and asserted "Egypt's Aswan Dam has never lost a single litre of water due to the GERD."
As Sudan experiences its third lean season since the start of the civil war, the humanitarian crisis continues to rapidly deteriorate. First officially declared in August 2024, famine continues to sweep across the country as fighting intensifies in Darfur and Kordofan. The latest UN Integrated Food Security Phase Classification update warns that Phase 5 (Famine) could spread to 17 additional areas, with 8.5 million people in Phase 4 (Emergency) and over 756,000 in Phase 5 (Famine). The scale of hunger is unprecedented in Sudan’s history, with nearly half of Sudan’s 50 million people now acutely food insecure and 637,000 facing “catastrophic” hunger – the highest figure globally, according to WFP. This is not just a by-product of war, but a deliberate tactic used to weaken and manipulate vulnerable populations. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have weaponised starvation through systematic obstruction, looting, and destruction of food systems.
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.
On 11 June, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized a strategic tri-border zone between Sudan, Libya, and Egypt, known as Jebel Uweinat. Declaring the area "liberated" from a small Sudanese army border garrison, the capture of remote Jebel Uweinat will provide the paramilitaries with further access to Libya's porous southern frontier and their ally, the Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, as well as Sudan's northern states. Amidst this flashpoint, which will allow the RSF to continue to funnel in weapons and supplies, the broader, destructive armed conflict remains intractable, with no credible political or peace process in sight.
This week, dozens of senior Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanders, Sudanese politicians aligned with the paramilitaries, and foreign officials gathered at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in central Nairobi. The widely publicised and controversial ceremony—backed by Kenya, Ethiopia, and the UAE—marks the launch of a "parallel government" intended to challenge the authority of the UN-recognised military administration currently based in Port Sudan.