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Growing concerns are present about the potential of warfare involving East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile language has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for access to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has provoked a heated verbal exchange.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in 2023 that his government's access to the sea was an vital issue, remarks that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. After a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, making it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a territorial conflict erupted in which more than 100,000 people died.

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrea's maritime facility of the port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and suggested the wish to capture it through military means.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "mistake" of losing access to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea's separation would be "addressed soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Threats

In the face of ongoing threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to brief comments on social media from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea describing it as "dangerous" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on mid-September that efforts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Region

So far, there are little evidence of major military movements in the border areas between the both nations.

However, in the country, government media has displayed completion events of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The head of human resources department of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an discussion that the army was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of youths" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Past Roots of the Conflict

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, Eritrea was administered by Italian rulers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the UK forces before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this system and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by the population in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Though this finished in a truce in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations remained at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was concluded – a move that gained Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then partners in the country's recent armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet ties have since broken down once more.