Sultan of Afar calls for peace talks in Ethiopia

Sultan of Afar Ahmed Alimirah has issued a call for de-escalation and peace talks in the Afar region of Ethiopia, supporting recent calls from the United Nations and the African Union.

In a statement titled ‘This is Not Our War’, the Sultan highlighted the suffering of the Afar people, describing them as an economically neglected ethnic group facing displacement, loss of livestock, and severed communications due to ongoing fighting. The region is strategically vital, as it contains the corridor between Addis Ababa and Djibouti that handles over 95 percent of Ethiopia’s trade volume.

The statement also addressed a previous incident in the village of Siyaru near the Ethiopia-Djibouti border, where a Djiboutian drone strike reportedly killed 11 Afar civilians, including women and children. The Sultanate intends to initiate dialogues with international bodies to prevent the Afar homeland from serving as a proxy battlefield.