Ethiopia wants the sea, but what happens when that demand collides with the most dangerous waterway on Earth? As Addis Ababa pushes for a port, the Red Sea is already in chaos. Iran-backed Houthi militants have turned these shipping lanes into a battlefield, hitting vessels with drones and missiles, dragging global powers into a maritime standoff. Now Africa’s internal tensions are spilling directly into the Middle East’s conflicts. Can Ethiopia force access to the coast without triggering a wider war with Eritrea? Could the crisis destabilise Djibouti, home to US, Chinese, French, and Japanese bases? And what happens when one of the world’s busiest trade corridors is squeezed between a port dispute in the Horn of Africa and a troubled Middle East? In this episode, Ananya Dutta breaks down the geopolitics, the military stakes, the shipping shockwaves, and the high-risk overlap between African power struggles and Middle Eastern proxy wars. What does Ethiopia really want and what will the Red Sea let it have?