China, US up stakes in troubled Horn with special envoys

Nairobi, Jan. 8 — China has upped the stakes in the Horn of Africa conflict after announcing it will name a special envoy for the region, an indication of Beijing’s concern for the security situation in regions it is heavily invested in. This comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken named former ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield the new US envoy for the Horn of Africa to replace Jeffrey Feltman, who has unsuccessfully tried to mediate the conflict in Ethiopia and the crisis in Sudan. “The ongoing instability in the Horn of Africa and the region’s interlinked political, security…