Ethiopia\u2019s claim that it has a \u2018natural right\u2019 to directly access the Red Sea, and its dreams of building a \u2018great power\u2019 in the region, should worry all Africans.<\/p>\n
On October 13, Ethiopia\u2019s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed raised eyebrows in the region and beyond by forcefully asserting that gaining low-cost, permanent access to a Red Sea port is \u201can existential matter\u201d for his landlocked country.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy 2030 [the population of Ethiopia] will be 150 million,\u201d he said in a televised address to parliament. \u201cA population of 150 million can\u2019t live in a geographic prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethiopia lost all its Red Sea ports and became the world\u2019s largest land-locked country in 1993, when Eritrea gained independence following a 30-year war of liberation. Since then, Ethiopia has been fully dependent on its neighbours \u2013 especially Djibouti \u2013 for access to ports and international shipping routes.[\u2026] CONTINUE READING <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abiy Ahmed\u2019s imperial ambitions are bad news for Africa, and the world Al Jazeera English<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":466807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Abiy-Ahmeds-Expansionist-Goals-Pose-Risks-to-Africa-and-Global-Stability.jpg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1Xq0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466736"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466808,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466736\/revisions\/466808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}