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Growing apprehensions are present about the potential of warfare between East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational language has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a heated verbal exchange.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in 2023 that his country's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Relations between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a long sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, rendering it without sea access.

Subsequently, a military clash started in which numerous people died.

Current Remarks from Ethiopia's Government

Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrean maritime facility of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the border - and suggested the wish to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

Despite persistent threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to concise remarks on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for maritime entry calling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a strategy of reclaiming lost territory.

Eritrean authorities alerted on 16 September that attempts to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Ground

There have been little evidence of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the both nations.

However, in Ethiopia, state television has broadcast graduation ceremonies of many recruits at different defense facilities.

The director of personnel division of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".

Historical Origins of the Conflict

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, the territory was administered by colonial powers.

Following Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the British military before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war followed, ending with military reversal in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then endorsed by voters in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, causing hostilities in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries stayed at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders endorsed a statement that the conflict was over – a decision that won Abiy the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then allies in Ethiopia's previous civil war in the northern region.

However relations have since broken down once more.