By Abdullahi Salad - Reporter
ASMARA, October 1, 2026 – Eritrea has announced that it is severing all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia, hours after Addis Ababa closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled ten Eritrean diplomats.
In a statement issued on X, Eritrea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country had "no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia with all the negative corollaries that this entails."
The move came in response to a decision announced earlier on Thursday by Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which closed its embassy in Asmara and declared ten Eritrean diplomats in Addis Ababa persona non grata. Ethiopia accused Eritrea of "direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence" and said the diplomats had been involved in activities posing "a direct threat to Ethiopia's national security," in breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The diplomats were given 48 hours to leave the country.
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Eritrea has denied allegations that it supports the armed opposition fighting Ethiopian government forces.
The diplomatic rupture comes as renewed fighting spreads across northern Ethiopia. Clashes between Tigrayan forces and the federal government resumed in late September, after the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seized airports in Mekelle, Aksum and Shire. The TPLF has joined a seven-group coalition, the "Alliance for Survival," which aims to remove the federal government.
The break marks a dramatic reversal in relations between the two neighbours. In 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Isaias Afwerki signed a peace agreement that ended two decades of hostility following the 1998–2000 border war, and Ethiopia reopened its embassy in Asmara. The deal earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.