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Mounting worries have emerged regarding the chance of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile discourse has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has triggered a fierce rhetorical conflict.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in last year that his country's maritime access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Ties between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a long sea border, officially seceded from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

In 1998, a territorial conflict erupted in which numerous people were killed.

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the boundary - and hinted at the wish to capture it through military means.

Recently, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of losing access to the sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "rectified in the future".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

In the face of persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to concise remarks on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for sea access describing it as "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a strategy of claiming back lost territory.

Government spokespeople alerted on 16 September that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Region

Currently, there are no reports of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nevertheless, in the country, national TV has broadcast graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The head of personnel division of the armed forces, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the military was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Historical Background of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was ruled by Italian colonisers.

After World War II, it was then administered by the British administration before turning into a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor ended this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year armed struggle followed, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then endorsed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was partially applied, and the two nations continued at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two endorsed a announcement that the conflict was over – a action that gained the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's 2020-2022 internal conflict in the northern region.

But ties have later worsened again.