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Increasing worries have emerged regarding the potential of military engagement between East African neighbors, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for entry to the Red Sea through Eritrea has provoked a fierce verbal exchange.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in the previous year that his government's sea access was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long sea border, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war broke out in which numerous people died.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have directly stated control of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "error" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrea's separation would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Response to the Statements

Amid continuous challenges from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been confined to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "dangerous" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a policy of retaking lost territory.

Eritrean authorities alerted on mid-September that moves to validate "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Border

So far, there are few indications of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the both nations.

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

The head of personnel division of the military, the officer, stated recently in an discussion that the army was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Conflict

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was administered by colonial powers.

Following Italy's defeat, it was then controlled by the British military before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this agreement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year armed struggle occurred, finishing with military reversal in 1991. Independence was then approved by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, causing hostilities in 1998.

Though this finished in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries stayed at in dispute.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was finished – a move that won Abiy the international recognition.

The two governments were then cooperators in the country's 2020-2022 armed struggle in Tigray.

However diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated again.