In May 2019 Africanews relayed Ethiopian journalist Samuel Getachew’s reporting from Zalambessa in northern Tigray, where restaurants and shops that had filled after the September 2018 border reopening were again empty.
Eritrea had shut the Zalambessa crossing and later other points from its side without a clear public explanation, even though Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki had reopened crossings with ceremony after the July 2018 peace deal. Traders and hotel workers said business and electricity both suffered.
Families had briefly reunited and Ethiopian goods had moved north while the gates stayed open. When Asmara closed them again, the border town went back toward the quiet ruin people remembered from the long no-war-no-peace years.
As Horn geopolitics archive, Zalambessa shows how thin the peace dividend was when Eritrea could reopen and reseal Red Sea–adjacent land routes on its own timetable.
Sources: Africanews