Djibouti Archives - Arab Digest

Yemeni civilians in a Djibouti camp after crossing one of the world's most contested waterways, leaving behind looted property and livelihoods amidst collapsing international support.

Yemen’s people bear the brunt of the Huthi war

Summary: the Huthi offensive caught the IRG forces and the Saudis off guard and with rapid advances and the seizure of new territory it is the Yemeni people who yet again pay the price.

September 28, 2026

Deep-seated geopolitical tensions over Yemen, Sudan, and the Red Sea are compounded by the UAE's exit from OPEC, which threatens to spark a future world oil price slump that Riyadh views as a direct threat to the Saudi economy.

Unhappy neighbours: Saudi Arabia and the UAE

Summary: it has been a long time since the UAE and Saudi Arabia have seen eye to eye and the Iran war and subsequent MOU have done little else but paper over the cracks.

June 23, 2026

Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi meeting Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

What’s In A Name?

Summary: what appears to be a growing probability - that the US will follow Israel in recognising Somaliland - is likely to exacerbate regional and superpower rivalries in an expanding “Middle East”.

January 26, 2026

Aidarous al-Zubaidi is wanted on treason charges in Yemen after he led a lightning military offensive that escalated a bitter feud between the Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The New Spartan League

Summary: with Israel's recognition of Somaliland and the UAE's backing for Yemeni separatists, regional powers are finally waking up to the implications of an upstart alliance.

January 16, 2026

Republic of Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi meeting with the UAE Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohamed Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai, February 12 2025

The Dangerous Push to Dismember Somalia

Summary: Senator Ted Cruz's push for the US to recognise Somaliland's independence is a dangerously misguided initiative driven by foreign special interests and lobbying groups. This move would destabilise the entire Horn of Africa, betray Somali sovereignty, and repeat the destructive colonial-era practices of dividing nations for external gain.

September 15, 2025

A unit of the Egyptian military police participated in the military parade held in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, May 8, 2025

Egypt: political prisoners, port control, and shifting alliances

Summary: while Sisi deepens ties with Athens, Moscow, and Ankara, the state confronts rising economic strain - from collapsing Suez Canal revenues to long-term port concessions to the UAE.

May 15, 2025

A surprise memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland has aggravated tensions in the Horn of Africa partly because of Somaliland's strategic Berbera port.

A Red Sea deal unsettles the Horn of Africa

Summary: the International Crisis Group assesses an agreement between Ethiopia and the breakaway state of Somaliland that could further destabilise the Red Sea region with MENA countries choosing sides and jockeying for position.

March 11, 2024

Egyptian soldiers who surrendered to the Sudanese Rapid Support Force at the Merowe military base, April 19, 2023 [photo credit: @RenaissanceDam]

Cairo’s dwindling influence

Summary: the more regional turmoil brews, the more Egypt is exposed as a regional hegemon in decline with little or no power to project even in its traditional spheres of influence.

March 7, 2024

Tensions in the Horn of Africa

Summary: the Horn of Africa is an overlooked but crucial region riven by factionalism, tribal animosity, a bitter colonial legacy and the intervention of powerful regional players including the UAE.

February 13, 2024

More than half the 570,000 people who have fled the conflict in Sudan for safety in Chad have settled in the eastern border town of Adre [photo credit: @WHOAFRO]

A forgotten war

Summary: Sudan is into its ninth month of a civil war that has brought the country to the edge of disintegration but the war is receiving little attention even as diplomatic efforts to end it continue to flounder.

December 13, 2023

The Al Raqw migrant camp, located close to the border, from where people try to enter Saudi Arabia. [photo credit: Maxar/HRW]

Ethiopian migrants in the Arabian Peninsula: trapped between Saudi and Yemeni hostility

Summary: the Saudi response to an influx of Ethiopian migrants has been to launch a brutal campaign of mass murder, rape and torture driving migrants who survive back into Yemen where they face further atrocities from all sides in the Yemen conflict.

September 18, 2023

IDPs in Yemen: an untold story

Summary: the war and the humanitarian disaster it has caused have received intermittent coverage but the story of Yemen’s 4.3 million IDPs has been virtually ignored.

September 20, 2022

Djibouti

Access provided by the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford