Egypt hosts four-way summit with Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia as Ethiopia tensions escalate

Egypt is hosting the leaders of Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia for a four-way summit on Sunday in the coastal city of El-Alamein, as its tensions with Ethiopia deepen over the renewed conflict in Tigray (The National).

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is joined by Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki. The Egyptian presidency said the summit was designed to “co-ordinate and consult on regional issues of interest” to the four countries (The National).

Sources said the meeting would announce several measures to consolidate the alliance, including wider military co-operation. “One will be broadening the extent of military cooperation to safeguard the region and protect Red Sea shipping,” one source said. “There may be some surprises in what the four leaders decide in terms of deeper and wider co-operation” (The National).

Ethiopia has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front-led opposition alliance fighting federal forces; all three deny it. Cairo and Addis Ababa expelled diplomats last week, and Egypt maintains an estimated 15,000-strong military contingent in Somalia alongside naval and army sites in Eritrea (The National).

Separately, El-Sisi told the African Union’s mid-year coordination summit in El-Alamein that cross-border challenges require “dialogue, not confrontation”, including on transboundary rivers (Arab News).

The summit coincides with Ethiopian federal forces taking full control of Mekelle on Sunday after the TPLF abandoned the Tigrayan capital a day earlier (Arab News PK).