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Growing apprehensions exist regarding the potential of warfare among East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational discourse has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has provoked a intense war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in 2023 that his country's access to the sea was an vital issue, comments that Eritrea ignored.

Relations between the both governments have frequently been strained. Following a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, making it without sea access.

Subsequently, a military clash broke out in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Current Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief the army commander have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrea's southern port of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and hinted at the intention to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "error" of being denied passage to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "corrected tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrea's Answer to the Threats

In the face of ongoing threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry calling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a policy of claiming back former lands.

The information ministry cautioned on 16 September that moves to validate "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Region

Currently, there are no reports of major military movements in the boundary zones between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, government media has shown graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The head of human resources department of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a signal to our opponents".

Past Roots of the Tension

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, the territory was governed by colonial powers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British military before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this system and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war occurred, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then confirmed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, resulting in conflict in 1998.

Though this finished in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors continued at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders signed a statement that the hostilities was finished – a action that gained the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then allies in the country's 2020-2022 internal conflict in Tigray.

Yet diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated again.