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Increasing worries are present over the chance of warfare among Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive language has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a intense verbal exchange.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in last year that his nation's sea access was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrea ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a long-standing fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in 1993, rendering it landlocked.

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

Latest Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have publicly asserted sovereignty of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing access to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Response to the Statements

Amid persistent warnings from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been restricted to brief comments on social media from Information Minister Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a policy of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry alerted on 16 September that efforts to validate "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Region

So far, there are few indications of major military movements in the border areas between the neighboring states.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, government media has displayed training completions of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The head of personnel division of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an conversation that the army was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of recruits" were entering service, which he said was "a signal to our opponents".

Previous Background of the Tension

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was governed by colonial powers.

Following World War II, it was then administered by the UK forces before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

But in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this arrangement and the region became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

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

Briefly in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they disagreed over the exact location of their shared boundary, resulting in war in 1998.

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

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two agreed to a announcement that the conflict was over – a action that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then allies in the country's previous internal conflict in Tigray.

However diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated again.