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Growing worries have emerged about the possibility of military engagement involving East African countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as aggressive language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for passage to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has triggered a intense war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in last year that his nation's access to the sea was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the two countries have regularly been difficult. After a prolonged fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

Five years later, a territorial conflict started in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the border - and implied the wish to capture it through military means.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "error" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "rectified in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "using武力".

Eritrean Response to the Threats

In the face of continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to short statements on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a strategy of claiming back previous domains.

Government spokespeople warned on mid-September that attempts to validate "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Ground

There have been little evidence of significant troop deployments in the border areas between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, government media has shown graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The head of staff section of the defense force, General Hachalu, commented lately in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was governed by colonial powers.

After Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the UK forces before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this system and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle ensued, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, leading to conflict in 1998.

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

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The two agreed to a declaration that the hostilities was over – a move that earned the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then cooperators in the country's previous armed struggle in Tigray.

However diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated once more.