How Abiy’s Reckless Ambition—and Emirati Meddling—Are Fueling Chaos in the Horn
A Tigrayan family uprooted by the recent civil war, eastern Tigray, Ethiopia, June 2023
Tiksa Negeri / Reuters
Arguably the worst armed conflict of the twenty-first century so far is not the one unfolding in Gaza or in Ukraine, but rather the catastrophic civil war in Ethiopia that ended 18 months ago. Also known as the Tigray war, the Ethiopian conflict took the lives of more than 500,000 soldiers and as many as 360,000 civilians, making it one of the deadliest conflicts since the end of the Cold War. Its combatants also perpetrated widespread atrocities and sexual violence, destroyed large swaths of the Tigray region in the north, and did enormous damage to an economy that, for the previous three decades,