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Growing worries have emerged regarding the potential of armed conflict between East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational language has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has provoked a intense war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in last year that his country's access to the sea was an crucial concern, statements that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict started in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Remarks from Ethiopian Leadership

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the border - and implied the desire to capture it through military means.

Recently, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "corrected tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrean Response to the Statements

In the face of persistent warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a policy of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry warned on mid-September that attempts to justify "flagrant aggression" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Ground

There have been few indications of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, state television has displayed graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The head of human resources department of the defense force, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an discussion that the military was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Tension

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, Eritrea was ruled by Italian rulers.

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

Yet in 1962 the ruler cancelled this agreement and the region became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year civil war occurred, finishing with the government's loss in 1991. Sovereignty was then endorsed by Eritreans in a plebiscite in 1993.

Briefly 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 war in 1998.

Although this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors remained at odds.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders signed a statement that the conflict was over – a action that won Abiy the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 internal conflict in Tigray.

But ties have subsequently deteriorated again.