Four days ago Ethiopian forces took Mekelle and the rebels pulled out, and I filed it in my head as the fast part of a war ending. Today the BBC has a short item, barely a paragraph, saying truckloads of Eritrean soldiers have been seen driving into Ethiopia, and that Addis Ababa has reportedly answered with drone strikes. Ethiopia says it will defend itself.

I notice how little I can say about this, and that seems like the honest place to start. Which direction are the trucks pointed? Eritrea fought alongside Ethiopia against Tigray in the last war, and Isaias Afwerki has no love for the TPLF. But the new rebel alliance is, in one headline’s phrase, former enemies fighting together, and Abiy has spent a year talking about the sea. Somalia’s president said last weekend that Ethiopia can have port access but has yet to come negotiate. Put a landlocked country with a port ambition next to a coastline Eritrea has held for thirty years and the trucks stop looking random.

It also sits oddly beside the Red Sea story I’ve been following all month. The Houthis took Yemen’s side of the water in September, Saudi Arabia is rerouting oil, Egypt is courting Riyadh. Now the African side starts moving too. Nobody has to be coordinating for that to matter.

Meanwhile France has arrested 6,877 people in three weeks, 86 percent under eighteen, and responded with 3,000 supply teachers. I’m not comparing the two. I just keep thinking about the ratio.

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