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When U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken traveled to Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal last week, he made a point of emphasizing U.S. concern about Ethiopia’s conflict. Blinken stressed that “it is imperative that the fighting stops” and that the United States fully supports former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the High Representative for the Horn of Africa for the African Union (AU), in his diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire that leads to political negotiations. Monday’s statement from Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promising to personally “mobilize to the front to lead the defense forces” suggests those efforts are far from succeeding.

This week will mark a year since the start of the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Twelve months in, the conflict is widening, the human toll is devastating, and the prospects for peace more remote than ever. The future of the Ethiopian state is so uncertain that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declined to release a forecast for the country in the latest World Economic Outlook.

On September 30 the Ethiopian government declared seven senior UN officials—five from OCHA, one from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and an official from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights—personae non gratae and insisted that they leave the country. Federal officials claimed that the expelled personnel had been “meddling in the internal affairs of the country.” The announcement came just days after the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator called the manmade crisis in Tigray “a stain on our conscience.”

Last week, the Biden administration rolled out a new executive order authorizing targeted financial sanctions on those found to be responsible for, or complicit in, exacerbating the conflict in and around the Tigray region or Ethiopia, hindering humanitarian assistance in region, or undermining Ethiopia’s democracy or territorial integrity. In its announcement, the White House was explicit in putting all of the parties to the conflict on notice, underscoring that the sanctions could apply to those in the Ethiopian government, the Eritrean government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and the Amhara region’s government and forces.