Africa & Indian Ocean Regional Conflicts — September 7, 2026

Northern Ethiopia: The Pretoria Order Collapses

The most consequential shift in the reporting period is the consolidation of open warfare between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Al Jazeera reported on 1 August 2026 that federal forces attacked at dawn on Saturday 1 August from the direction of Shererina near the Sudanese border, with the Mekelle-based regional administration and federal minister Abraham Belay trading blame over who fired first. Ethiopia specialist Kjetil Tronvoll characterised the clashes to Al Jazeera as the "most serious incident" since the November 2022 Pretoria agreement. By 3 September 2026 the Critical Threats Project assessed that hostilities had reached the one-month mark of resumption, with analysts openly comparing the trajectory to the 2020-2022 war.

The escalation is no longer bilateral. The Soufan Center's 21 August 2026 IntelBrief records Eritrean military movement across the Ethiopian frontier on 3 August and the deployment of heavy weapons by a TPLF-Eritrean coalition on 6 August - a complete inversion of the 2020-2022 alignment, in which Asmara fought alongside Addis Ababa. Al Jazeera's 7 August explainer confirms residual Eritrean presence in Irob and Shiraro districts contrary to Pretoria withdrawal obligations, and documents the drift of Amhara Fano militias away from the federal government; MadaMasr reported on 26 August that one-time adversaries in Amhara and Tigray had reached working understandings against Addis Ababa. Drone strikes on Mekelle in August mark the return of the standoff air campaign that defined the last war. Assessment: the probability of an ENDF general offensive into Tigray, and of direct Ethiopian-Eritrean interstate exchange, is now the single highest-impact escalation risk in the region.

Sudan: Kordofan Becomes the Decisive Theatre

Sudan's war has migrated decisively from Darfur to Kordofan following the Rapid Support Forces' capture of El Fasher in late October 2025 - an operation in which the UN Human Rights Office documented over 6,000 killings in the first three days and which OHCHR ruled amounted to war crimes. Sudan Tribune reported that the Sudanese Armed Forces and allied formations seized Hamrat al-Wiz in North Kordofan on 6 September 2026, consolidating the corridor recaptured during the late-July offensive that restored the Export Road and retook Bara and Um Sayala. Al Jazeera reported on 27 July that the army had regained the Khartoum-El Obeid highway, easing resupply of the besieged North Kordofan capital.

El Obeid nonetheless remains the RSF's principal objective. The Security Council Report September 2026 forecast records simultaneous RSF drone strikes on major cities on 12 August and sustained targeting of El Obeid's power and fuel infrastructure, closing medical facilities and driving displacement - a siege pattern Al Jazeera on 6 July explicitly compared to the prelude at El Fasher. The war is also regionalising eastward: RSF forces and the SPLM-North retook Kurmuk and Geisan in Blue Nile state in mid-August, on the Ethiopian border. On 3 September the Africa Center for Strategic Studies reported UN fact-finding conclusions that foreign weapons, drones and fighters routed through entities in the UAE, Chad, Libya and Somalia are sustaining the conflict, with over 1,000 killed by drone strikes in the first five months of 2026 alone. Mediation is fracturing: the Quintet (UN, AU, IGAD, EU, Arab League) is split, with members boycotting a planned Khartoum visit over neutrality concerns.

Eastern DRC: A Roadmap Without a Ceasefire

Diplomacy and violence are advancing in parallel in the Kivus. Al Jazeera reported on 23 August 2026 that Kinshasa and the AFC/M23 alliance agreed a roadmap of sequenced steps and timelines following five days of talks in Switzerland (17-21 August) attended by the United States, Qatar, Togo, Switzerland and the AU Commission, operationalising the Doha framework signed in November 2025. Confidence-building has produced deliverables - an ICRC-facilitated release of 15 detainees to M23 on 7 August, a Joint Security Coordination Mechanism session in Geneva on 12-13 August, and a ceasefire verification mission deploying to Minembwe in South Kivu.

The ground picture contradicts the paperwork. The Critical Threats Congo War Security Review of 4 September 2026 records an M23/Rwandan drone strike on coalition positions in Fizi district and an M23 counteroffensive amid heavy fighting in Kalehe, northern South Kivu; rebels alleged Congolese drone strikes on 23 August. Six of the Doha protocols - humanitarian access, restoration of state authority, interim security arrangements, IDP return, economic recovery, and transitional justice - remain unnegotiated. Washington continues to accuse Kigali of maintaining forces in the DRC and has sanctioned Rwandan military entities, while Kinshasa's 28 July FDLR disarmament protocol was dismissed by Rwanda as a delaying tactic. Roughly 5.3 million people remain displaced since the fall of Goma and Bukavu in early 2025, compounded by an Ebola outbreak Al Jazeera reported had caused some 2,500 deaths since May 2026.

Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb: Maritime Risk Re-Escalates

The Horn's maritime approaches deteriorated sharply in August. Al Jazeera reported on 12 August 2026 that a Houthi ballistic-missile "double-tap" strike on the Egyptian-owned, Tanzania-flagged cargo vessel Tihamah in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait killed at least six - including three Pakistani and one Indonesian crew - with a follow-on missile striking the rescue effort. It was the first shipping fatality attributable to the Houthis since the US-Israel war on Iran began on 28 February 2026, and followed the collapse of the UN-brokered Yemen truce after a Saudi strike on Sanaa airport on 13 July.

The commercial consequences are structural rather than episodic: Suez Canal transits in early 2026 were running roughly 60 percent below pre-2023 baselines, with over 70 percent of East-West container traffic routed via the Cape of Good Hope, adding 3,000-3,500 nautical miles and 10-14 days per voyage. War-risk surcharges have settled around $50-100 per TEU. The revenue loss falls directly on Egypt, and the strategic exposure on Djibouti, Eritrea and Somaliland's ports. Cairo's calculus is now explicitly maritime as well as riverine: Al Jazeera's 21 August analysis notes Egyptian concern has extended from Blue Nile headwaters to Bab al-Mandab as Ethiopia advances the Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo dam projects announced in March 2026, following GERD's inauguration on 9 September 2025.

Somalia and the Horn's Security-Financing Cliff

Somalia is entering a compounded political and security crisis. Parliament approved and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed constitutional amendments in March 2026 extending parliamentary and presidential terms from four to five years and deferring elections to 2027; the opposition withdrew recognition of his legitimacy on 15 May, and Puntland and Jubaland have suspended recognition of federal institutions.

That leverage bites because AUSSOM is financially insolvent. MadaMasr reported on 19 August 2026 that the mission received barely a quarter of its $166 million 2025 budget while carrying over $100 million in arrears, and that Washington will block UN funding beyond December 2026. Al-Shabaab is exploiting the Mogadishu-Kismayo rift, attacking Jubaland forces at Bulo Haji, while Puntland's US-, UAE-, Ethiopian- and Kenyan-backed campaign has degraded but not eliminated the Islamic State's northern stronghold in the Cal Miskaad mountains.

North Africa and the Indian Ocean Periphery

Libya produced the period's one genuinely positive signal: Al Jazeera reported on 1 September 2026 on a UN-brokered "4+4" accord signed in Tripoli in August, creating an eight-member committee drawn equally from the House of Representatives, High Council of State, the Dbeibah government and Haftar's command, mandating presidential and parliamentary elections within 24 months and restructuring the elections commission with rotating sessions in Tripoli, Benghazi and Sabha. High Council leader Mohammed Takala boycotted the signing, and the precedents of Skhirat (2015) and Geneva (2021) counsel caution.

In the Indian Ocean, Madagascar remains under military rule following the CAPSAT seizure of power on 14 October 2025 and the AU's suspension of the country on 15 October; Colonel Michael Randrianirina has pledged elections within 18-24 months and has cultivated Russian military supply relationships. Mozambique's Cabo Delgado insurgency persists at near-daily tempo across 16 of 17 districts, with ISS Africa assessing the exclusively military strategy as failed and TotalEnergies' $20 billion LNG project still under force majeure; Maputo has confirmed it will now finance the Rwandan deployment itself. In South Africa, the Daily Maverick reported on 4 September that the ANC failed to submit roughly 200 candidates before the IEC's 28 August deadline for the 4 November local elections - a self-inflicted organisational failure that sharpens the mid-term test facing the Government of National Unity.