The Houthis are putting pressure on Djibouti: a knock-on effect on Ethiopia

NAIROBI – From a geographical advantage to a political, economic and military threat. With dangers looming over a region already unsettled by internal and external turmoil: the Horn of Africa. Djibouti, with just over a million inhabitants in an area similar in size to that of Slovenia, finds itself facing a crisis fuelled by what is, or was, its main resource: its access to Bab el-Mandeb, the strait separating the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula and channelling energy and trade flows between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Djibouti owes an estimated 76 per cent of its GDP to its port; it handles almost 97 per cent of trade bound for Ethiopia under Abiy Ahmed and is home to five permanent US military bases, France, China, Japan and Italia, in addition to troops from other countries and the base for the EU Aspides mission. The incursions in March and April by the Houthis, the pro-Iranian rebels in Yemen, had already sparked fears about the sustainability of this model. The scenario is now repeating itself, on an even larger scale. The Houthis have captured Perim, an island at the heart of the chokepoint that allows them to threaten or completely block transit.

According to Il Sole 24 Ore-Next Med, the situation today remains fluid, but the scenarios on the horizon are far from rosy. The first impact is humanitarian in nature, with the exodus of thousands of Yemenis fleeing by sea to Djibouti. The second impact affects the balance of power that has always underpinned the exceptional nature of a state as small in size as it is influential. The Houthis’ advance ‘directly alters the security equation’, explains Adam Daud Ahmed, an expert analyst on the Horn of Africa. It is no longer a country ‘bordering’ a conflict zone, says Daud Ahmed, but a player that risks being swept up as a pawn or a direct target. Any escalation, explains Bravin Onditi of the Horn Research Centre, could ‘turn Djibouti into an operational base – and perhaps a target – in someone else’s war’.

On the economic front, the most obvious repercussions are expected to affect port operations and revenue, which will be hit by a reduction in ship calls and transhipment activities . Ethiopia could be particularly hard hit, encouraging diversification towards other maritime outlets or the revival of more contentious political objectives. A prolonged crisis in Djibouti, says Onditi di Horn, “would also strengthen Addis Ababa’s case for diversification that does not depend on that state. And the line of thinking in Ethiopian foreign policy is already pointing towards options such as Berbera”. The other scenario centres on a claim that poses a threat to the balance of power along the coast: that of Ethiopian access to the Red Sea. Abiy speaks of this as a ‘right’ denied to Addis Ababa since Eritrea’s independence in 1993, intermittently reviving provocations regarding an Ethiopian coastal expansion. A surge in prices in Djibouti would provide him with fresh arguments.