THE first sounds of war to reach Africa were not explosions. They were flight cancellation alerts – pinging across airports from Cairo to Cape Town, from Nairobi to Lagos, from Kigali to Blantyre – within hours of the United States and Israel launching Operation Epic Fury against Iran on the night of 28 February 2026.
In the days since, the conflict has delivered Africa a double blow: its skies have gone dark, and its fuel pumps are running dry.
Botswana’s government has warned its 2.6 million citizens that the country holds fewer than nine days of national fuel reserves, with resupply chains in disarray. Food deliveries, public transport, emergency services and cross-border commerce all face imminent disruption. It is not an isolated case — it is a continental condition.
The root cause is the Strait of Hormuz, the 55-kilometre chokepoint through which approximately 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products pass every day — roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption. Iran’s retaliatory drone and missile campaign has brought seaborne tanker traffic through the strait to a near-standstill. Brent crude has surged from $73 to above $83 per barrel; analysts warn of $100 oil if the closure extends beyond weeks. For Africa’s import-dependent nations, which purchase refined diesel and petrol on global markets priced off Brent, the surge hits pumps within days.
“The airline has cancelled more than 100 flights a week — and lost about $137 million in a week.”
— Lemma Yadhecha, Ethiopian Airlines Business Manager
In the air, the damage is equally stark. More than 37,000 flights to and from the Middle East have been cancelled globally since the offensive began, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. The airspace over Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain closed simultaneously as Iranian retaliatory strikes swept Gulf cities. Dubai International Airport – the world’s busiest international hub and Africa’s primary gateway to Asia, Europe and the Americas – was functioning at roughly 25 percent of normal capacity before being struck directly by Iranian ordnance.
Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier and one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation groups, has been forced to suspend flights to ten Gulf and Middle East destinations – including Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Amman and Dammam. Prior to the conflict, it operated three daily flights to Dubai alone. Over 160 combined passenger and cargo flights are now cancelled every week, stranding between 40,000 and 50,000 passengers. The weekly revenue loss of $137 million, if sustained, translates to more than half a billion dollars across a single month.
Kenya Airways suspended its Dubai and Sharjah services immediately, stranding thousands of Kenyans in both directions – including migrant workers who constitute a critical source of remittance income for the country. The airline mounted limited humanitarian repatriation flights on 4 and 5 March, only to cancel them again on 6 March after fresh missile activity triggered renewed closure of Dubai airport. The cycle of suspension, partial resumption and re-suspension has become the defining feature of the crisis for African carriers: a volatile operating environment in which airlines burn costs maintaining readiness against daily uncertainty.
In South Africa, OR Tambo, Cape Town International and King Shaka airports recorded a combined fifteen cancellations in the first days of March. South African Airways suspended its Emirates codeshare Dubai routes; regional carrier Airlink warned that the collapse of inbound Gulf connections was severing onward links to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. Nigeria’s Air Peace has seen its Gulf routes — including Sharjah, where the carrier had been expanding aggressively – go dark, leaving hundreds of Nigerian pilgrims stranded mid-Umrah during Ramadan. RwandAir has announced no resumption date for its Middle East services.
The fuel and aviation crises share a single structural cause: Africa’s deep and largely unreformed dependency on Gulf infrastructure. Its airlines built their international growth on the scaffolding of Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad – the three Gulf mega-carriers that together function as the continent’s connective tissue to the rest of the world. Its fuel importers built their supply chains around Saudi Arabian crude. When a war shuts the Gulf, it shuts Africa.
The cruel irony is that Africa both produces oil and generates aviation demand on a massive scale. The continent pumps nearly 10 million barrels of crude per day — yet exports it raw and imports refined fuel at global prices. Its airlines have grown rapidly — yet remain reliant on Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi as transit points for intercontinental travel. The Single African Air Transport Market, intended under the Yamoussoukro Declaration to build intra-continental connectivity, has advanced slowly. African strategic petroleum reserves, repeatedly promised, remain critically underfunded.
As of 9 March, the conflict shows no sign of rapid resolution. Iran has pledged continued retaliation. Gulf airspace remains under intermittent restriction. Qatar Airways continues extending its suspension in 24-hour increments. The structural question is no longer simply when the war ends – but whether Africa will use the reckoning it has forced to finally build the energy reserves, downstream refining capacity, and African-controlled aviation networks it has deferred for decades.
For now, the answer is written in empty departure boards and lengthening petrol station queues from Gaborone to Lagos. For the Kenyan workers who cannot get home, the Nigerian pilgrims whose Umrah is suspended, and the southern African family waiting on a fuel truck that may not arrive – Operation Epic Fury is not a distant geopolitical event. It is an immediate human emergency, delivered by a war in which Africa has no stake, and over which it has no influence.
