What makes Eritrea the North Korea of Africa?

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This is the script for my video posted on May 13, 2026. Watch it on TikTok.

If you’ve heard of Eritrea at all, you’ve probably heard it referred to as the North Korea of Africa. This is a country of a few million people governed for the last 33 years by one man, in a very literal sense. Eritrea has no constitution, no legislature, and no elections, but it is now being courted simultaneously by Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and now the US. So what makes this tiny east African autocracy so attractive in the world of geopolitics?

For several centuries, the territory we now know as Eritrea was contested between Ethiopian polities, local principalities, and Ottoman and Egyptian forces who controlled much of the coastline. In the late 1880s, as European countries were scrambling to colonize much of Africa, Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV died, after which the Kingdom of Italy proclaimed the establishment of Italian Eritrea. From there the country changed hands several more times, from British administration in 1941 to UN-mandated federation with Ethiopia in 1952 to full annexation and the dissolution of the Eritrean Assembly by Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie in 1962. For thirty years, Eritrea fought for its independence, until 1991, when the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, or EPLF, finally defeated Ethiopian forces.

After a UN-supervised referendum, Eritrea formally declared its independence in 1993 and gained international recognition. But the EPLF immediately seized power, establishing a one-party state and banning any kind of political activity, though it did rebrand itself as the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, or PFDJ, in 1994.

Since 1993, Eritrea has been ruled by the PFDJ under Isaias Afwerki. He is commonly considered a totalitarian leader, in that he rules without a constitution, controls every aspect of the country’s existence unilaterally, and has committed various human rights violations and crimes against humanity to maintain his authority. His government conscripts young people with a hypothetical term of 18 months, but in practice many of these people are forced to serve far longer than that, which the UN has called enslavement. In 2024, Reporters Without Borders ranked Eritrea the worst in the world on its Press Freedom Index, below even North Korea. Isaias and his government stand accused of the enforced disappearance of journalists and other perceived threats, and these people are typically never seen again.

The Eritrean military has also been implicated in mass atrocities against the Tigray population of northern Ethiopia, alongside Ethiopian forces, while fighting against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, one of Afwerki’s longstanding enemies. Even after the Pretoria Agreement was signed between Ethiopia and the TPLF in late 2022, Eritrea’s military stayed put and has been there ever since. You can learn more about Tigray in the video I made about Ethiopia a couple of weeks ago, but suffice it to say that Eritrea entered the conflict with the aim to destroy the TPLF entirely, and they viewed the peace agreement as a betrayal.

But back to the thesis: Why would countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the US want anything to do with Eritrea based on all of this? Well, historically, none of these countries mind being associated with autocrats like Afwerki when it serves their objectives. But beyond that, they’re all interested in Eritrea for the same reason the Ottomans for several centuries: the coastline.

Eritrea has two main ports: Massawa to the north, which is known for its deep water, and Assab to the south, just inside of the Bab el-Mandeb. The Bab el-Mandeb carries over 10% of global maritime trade because it is the chokepoint connecting the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea. This access is arguably Eritrea’s only significant resource; it is the thing that makes the country’s autocracy possible, because its ports are so useful that other countries are willing to overlook the regime’s crimes in exchange for access. Russia has been discussing building a naval base at Massawa since at least 2018, and Eritrea continually favors Russia in UN votes. No base exists yet, but the diplomatic infrastructure is in place to make one happen.

The US has been normalizing relations with Eritrea because it wants to secure Red Sea shipping lanes against attacks from the Houthis, which have been taking place since October 2023. Saudi Arabia similarly has been investing both financially and diplomatically into the country.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia is landlocked, and its government considers access to the sea an existential issue. Eritrea is the most obvious solution to this, and this dynamic is actually the driving force behind why Egypt supports the Afwerki regime. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam purportedly threatens the Nile’s water supply, and Egypt can exert leverage against Ethiopia by supporting Eritrea. This alignment was formalized in late 2024, when the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, and Somalia met in Asmara and pledged trilateral coordination, effectively forming a unified bloc against Ethiopia. On the other side, the UAE, which ran a military base out of Eritrea’s port of Assab until 2021, has pivoted hard back to Ethiopia, financing its government and supplying military resources.

Effectively, Eritrea’s geography is its key resource, the thing that makes it geopolitically relevant and sustains its autocracy. But the trope of calling it the “North Korea of Africa” is partially misleading. It may be an autocracy, but it is not autarkic, which is to say it’s not self-sufficient. Its geopolitical dynamics are deeply transactional, because it knows its own value and is willing to trade that value in exchange for whatever it needs. Eritrea also has no nuclear program, and it lacks the systemic vulnerability and ideological furor that make North Korea such a volatile actor.

In the near term, the most high-profile thing we could see with Eritrea is some kind of direct conflict with Ethiopia. In February 2026, conflict escalated between the two countries, with Ethiopia publicly accusing Eritrea of occupying its territory and supporting rebel groups, while also pushing for access to the port of Assab. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also formally accused Eritrean troops of mass killings during the Tigray war, effectively backtracking on their formal alliance. While the conflict is mostly diplomatic right now and neither country is positioned to win a prolonged conventional war, there is potential for miscalculation and rapid escalation under the right conditions, particularly if Afwerki were to die and leave behind an uncertain succession.

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