🔗 Share this article

Mounting apprehensions exist regarding the potential of warfare among Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for passage to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has triggered a fierce verbal exchange.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in the previous year that his nation's sea access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have frequently been strained. Following a long-standing struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war erupted in which over a hundred thousand people were killed.

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Officials

Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the border - and suggested the desire to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing entry to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "addressed soon".

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

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Amid ongoing warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to concise remarks on X from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for maritime entry labeling it "dangerous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

Government spokespeople cautioned on recently that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Movements on the Region

So far, there are little evidence of major military movements in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in the country, state television has displayed graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The head of staff section of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an discussion that the army was in a "reliable position" as "many thousands of recruits" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Previous Background of the Tension

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

After Italy's defeat, it was then controlled by the UK forces before turning into a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s the ruler terminated this agreement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict ensued, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by the population in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their common border, leading to war in 1998.

Though this finished in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors stayed at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a announcement that the war was concluded – a action that gained the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then allies in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.

But relations have since broken down again.