Attention began shifting toward Ethiopia and its relationship with Sudan’s war after Reuters published a report in January 2026 citing diplomatic cables and internal security memoranda indicating the establishment of a military camp for the “Ta’sis” forces in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region, near the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and roughly 30 kilometres from the Sudanese border.
According to the agency, the camp housed approximately 4,300 fighters as of January 2026, most of them Ethiopians, alongside Sudanese and South Sudanese recruits, including soldiers affiliated with the SPLM-North movement, undergoing training at a site believed capable of accommodating up to 10,000 recruits.
The situation in Blue Nile state, which borders Ethiopia, quickly erupted once again, reopening questions surrounding Ethiopia’s role in Sudan’s war.
Fighting intensified in the areas of Al-Silk and Malkan in January 2026 following an assault launched by forces allied with the Ta’sis coalition. On March 24, coalition fighters carried out an offensive that drove the SAF out of the strategic town of Al-Kurmuk in Blue Nile state. Two days later, on March 26, Ta’sis forces advanced again, announcing control over the area of Maqjah, where the SAF had maintained a military camp.
The military clashes in Blue Nile soon escalated into an open diplomatic crisis between Sudan and Ethiopia after drone strikes targeted Khartoum Airport on May 4. The Hope government, through its foreign minister, explicitly accused both the Emirati and Ethiopian governments of involvement in the attack. In response, Hope’s foreign minister summoned the Ethiopian ambassador.
Speaking at a news conference, SAF spokesman Brig. Gen. Asim Awad Abdel Wahab said the military possessed documented intelligence indicating that drone attacks carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were being launched from Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar Airport. He said the strikes began on March 1, targeting areas across White Nile, Blue Nile, North Kordofan and South Kordofan states. Wahab added that the army had shot down one of the drones over the city of El-Obeid on March 17, and that data retrieved from the aircraft showed it belonged to the UAE. The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with the Arab League, condemned the attack on Khartoum while alluding to unnamed foreign actors behind it.
From cautious observer to accused participant
Ethiopia transformed from a cautious observer into a party accused, at least by Sudan’s government, of direct involvement in the country’s escalating war.
During the early stages of the April 15 war, the Ethiopian prime minister manoeuvred carefully, keeping all sides guessing as he navigated an increasingly volatile and complicated regional landscape.
In December 2023, Abiy Ahmed appeared to lean toward the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after hosting its commander in Ethiopia, the second stop, after Uganda, on his first international trip since the outbreak of the war in Sudan. During that visit, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo met with a delegation from the “Taqaddum” coordination bloc and signed the “Addis Ababa Declaration,” a political roadmap aimed at ending the conflict.
Only months later, however, the Ethiopian prime minister appeared to shift closer to the SAF. In July 2024, he visited Port Sudan and met with Al-Burhan. At the time, Middle East Eye reported that he had mediated the phone call held that same month between Al-Burhan and the president of the UAE.
Amid the developments that unfolded in early 2026, Ethiopia transformed from a cautious observer into a party accused, at least by Sudan’s government, of direct involvement in the country’s escalating war.
Is Ethiopia directly engaged in Sudan’s conflict? That question may no longer be the most useful one. The more pressing question may instead be: What does Ethiopia, itself a fragile state grappling with multiple insurgencies, stand to gain from entangling itself in what is arguably the most devastating ongoing war in the world?
A long running crisis
This is not the first-time relations between Sudan and Ethiopia have deteriorated. The roots of the conflict between the neighbouring states are deeply embedded in geography itself: along the Nile waters dispute and across the fertile borderlands of Al-Fashaga.
Over the years, both governments have repeatedly intervened by backing armed factions hostile to the other’s rule. Ethiopia supported the original Sudan People’s Liberation Movement led by John Garang during its war against Sudan’s central government, while Sudan’s former Islamist-led government, in turn, supported the Eritrean independence struggle during the 1990s.
When Ethiopia’s federal government was shaken internally during the Tigray war between 2020 and 2022, the SAF seized the opportunity to advance into the disputed Al-Fashaga territory. The incursion began in late 2020, and by early 2021 Khartoum had regained roughly 60 to 70 per cent of the fertile agricultural lands along the border, ending nearly 25 years of de facto control by Ethiopian farmers and Amhara militias over the area.
From this perspective, Ethiopia’s reported support for the RSF may not have come as a surprise. Yet the circumstances surrounding the current crisis differ markedly from previous episodes, as the conflict now unfolds within a broader regional framework that stretches beyond the Horn of Africa into the Middle East and its competing power centers.
Ethiopia and the UAE
In exchange for drones, financial backing and diplomatic protection, Ethiopia could provide a critical land corridor to ensure the continued flow of supplies to RSF.
On one front, ties between Ethiopia and the UAE deepened significantly under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018. The relationship reached its peak when the UAE provided decisive military support widely credited with shifting the course of the Tigray war between 2020 and 2022 in favour of Ethiopia’s federal government.
The partnership between the two countries extended well beyond military cooperation into the economic sphere. In August 2023, the Emirati ambassador to Ethiopia said Emirati investments in the country had reached 113 projects. Reports also indicate that Abu Dhabi financed several major state-backed developments in Ethiopia, including a vast residential complex known as the Chaka Project, which features a new palace for the Ethiopian prime minister, residential compounds for ministers, facilities to host visiting heads of state, a major hotel and two artificial lakes. According to various reports, the project’s total cost could approach $10 billion.
Abiy Ahmed told Ethiopian lawmakers that the project would not be financed through government resources, but rather by domestic and foreign investors. Reports surrounding the development suggest the UAE is likely among its principal financial backers.
With the UAE also accused in widely cited international reports of backing the RSF in Sudan, Abu Dhabi’s influence appears to be pushing Prime Minister Ahmed toward a more explicit alignment in Sudan’s conflict. From this perspective, Ethiopia’s incentives seem closely tied to direct Emirati pressure: in exchange for drones, financial backing and diplomatic protection, Ethiopia could provide a critical land corridor to ensure the continued flow of supplies to RSF.
Sudan and Eritrea: A shared enemy
On the other side of the regional divide, the SAF appears to be moving toward a direct alignment with Eritrea. Khartoum’s logic, too, seems straightforward. Sudan’s military leadership views the continuation of the war as largely driven by Emirati support for RSF, while Eritrea, motivated by its own anxieties over Ethiopia, has gravitated toward an emerging Saudi-led regional bloc opposed to Abu Dhabi. In this sense, both parties have found common cause against a shared adversary.
The alliance has gradually evolved from a political understanding into an operational reality. By June 2025, SAF had relocated fighter aircraft to air bases inside Eritrea to shield them from an escalating wave of drone strikes carried out by RSF against eastern Sudan, areas once regarded as relatively secure. At the same time, Asmara has been training and arming militias allied with the SAF, reinforcing an expanding cross-border military partnership.
Sudan entered this alliance at a moment of intensifying tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, driven largely by Ethiopia’s ambition to secure maritime access. This may partly explain why PM Abiy once again distanced himself from Sudan’s government after a brief period of relative rapprochement in July 2025. Abiy has described the issue of obtaining a seaport as an “existential necessity,” and in September 2025 stated that losing access to the port of Assab following Eritrea’s independence was “a mistake that must be corrected tomorrow.”
In October 2025, Ethiopia’s foreign minister accused Eritrea of preparing for war through its alliance with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a coalition that later became known as the Tsimdo Alliance. Analysts say Eritrea is attempting to establish a buffer zone between itself and Ethiopia’s federal government through this partnership.
Meanwhile, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front itself drifted closer to Eritrea following internal divisions triggered by the 2022 peace agreement signed between the movement and Ethiopia’s federal government in South Africa. Factions within the TPLF accused Getachew Reda, then leader of the Tigray region, of aligning too closely with Addis Ababa, and ultimately succeeded in removing him from power in March 2025.
The war has also pushed Sudan’s government to deepen its longstanding ties with Egypt. That shift came amid mounting tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia after Addis Ababa inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in July 2025, a project Cairo regards as an existential threat.
An alternative route
These regional developments unfolded as RSF’s supply routes through Libya and Chad came under increasing threat.
In February 2026, The New York Times published a report documenting the presence of Turkish-made Akinci drones at an air base in southwestern Egypt. According to the newspaper, the drones were being used to strike RSF supply convoys moving across western Sudan. The report also cited Egyptian officials who described Cairo’s position as having hardened significantly following the fall of El Fasher in October 2025.
The cumulative effect of these shifts has made it increasingly difficult for the UAE to funnel weapons to RSF through Libya and Chad. As a result, Ethiopia has emerged as one of Abu Dhabi’s few remaining reliable channels.
A larger war?
Whether Sudan’s war remains confined within the country’s borders or spills beyond them, the foundations of an unprecedented regional catastrophe are already in place.
In this context, Addis Ababa’s involvement in Sudan’s war would reflect both a response to Emirati pressure and an awareness of a growing regional bloc that now includes former adversaries such as Eritrea, alongside Egypt, Somalia and Tigray rebels.
For Ethiopia, this emerging alignment represents a direct threat to its ambitions in the Red Sea as well as to its efforts to safeguard the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
At the same time, neighbouring states are becoming increasingly alarmed by what they view as an expansionist Ethiopia forging alliances with actors accused of committing atrocities and acts of genocide in Sudan.
Whether Sudan’s war remains confined within the country’s borders or spills beyond them, the foundations of an unprecedented regional catastrophe are already in place.
Prime Minister Abiy’s threats regarding the annexation of parts of Eritrea to secure access to the Red Sea add another deeply volatile dimension to the crisis. Such rhetoric could ultimately provoke retaliation from Eritrea itself, potentially through efforts to destabilize its southern neighbour by supporting insurgent movements in Amhara or Tigray.
