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With ongoing fighting in the Tigray region, Ethiopia’s chronic instability is set to worsen unless the federal government adopts a conciliatory approach toward opponents. In this excerpt from our Watch List 2021, Crisis Group urges the EU and its member states to press federal authorities to allow access for humanitarian aid and support dialogue to address the country’s most divisive fault lines.

Ethiopia has declared that its main military operation in northern Tigray is over, but fighting persists and existential questions hang over the country’s transition. This week on The Horn, Adem Kassie Abebe joins Alan to discuss how Prime Minister Abiy should navigate the troubled waters ahead.

Fighting between the Ethiopian army and Tigray forces has arrived near the region’s biggest city, home to half a million residents. Addis Ababa should pause hostilities, all sides should minimise harm to civilians and the AU should step up efforts to avert further bloodshed.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob Malley and guest host Richard Atwood talk with Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director Laurel Miller about the U.S. plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and reflect on the expulsion of Crisis Group Senior Analyst Will Davison from Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government on 21 November deported Crisis Group’s Ethiopia Senior Analyst William Davison. No formal reason was immediately given, but his expulsion doubtless relates to the serious conflict in Tigray and increasing sensitivity to non-official points of view.

In the early hours of 4 November, a powder keg exploded in the Horn of Africa, as tensions between Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigray region’s leaders erupted into conflict.

This week on The Horn, clashes have broken out between Ethiopia’s federal troops and forces in northern Tigray. Crisis Group experts covering the long-feared escalation and the broader Horn of Africa discuss reaching a ceasefire and how to address the underlying need for a broader national dialogue.

With Ethiopian federal troops and Tigray’s paramilitary forces engaged in armed conflict, local, regional and international actors should press for a ceasefire and chart a path to comprehensive dialogue to avert civil war in Africa’s second most populous country.

A clash over budget transfers is the latest flashpoint in the bitter dispute between Ethiopian federal authorities and their rivals in Tigray. To avoid the  standoff triggering a damaging conflict, both sides should back down and embrace comprehensive dialogue.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Crisis Group President Rob Malley and Board Member Naz Modirzadeh, a Harvard professor of international law and armed conflict, dive deep into the conflicts that rage around the globe, along with Crisis Group field analysts and special guests. This week, they discuss U.S. support for the Yemen war and the absence of the Palestinian issue from the normalisation agreement among Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Crisis Group's Senior Analyst for Ethiopia, Will Davison, also joins them to discuss the challenges facing Ethiopia.