🔗 Share this article

Growing apprehensions are present regarding the possibility of warfare among Horn of Africa neighbors, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile language has intensified in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has provoked a fierce rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in last year that his country's maritime access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrea ignored.

Relations between the both governments have frequently been strained. After a prolonged struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a extensive maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in 1993, leaving it without sea access.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict erupted in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Current Remarks from Ethiopian Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrea's maritime facility of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and hinted at the desire to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "rectified in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be restored "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Threats

In the face of ongoing threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to concise remarks on X from Communications Head the minister.

He has rejected Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a policy of retaking former lands.

The information ministry warned on 16 September that attempts to justify "blatant hostility" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Border

So far, there are little evidence of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown training completions of thousands of cadets at different defense facilities.

The head of human resources department of the military, the officer, stated recently in an conversation that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Tension

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, the territory was administered by Italian rulers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British administration before becoming a integrated region of Ethiopia.

But in 1962 the ruler terminated this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long civil war ensued, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their common border, resulting in conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations stayed at loggerheads.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a statement that the war was finished – a decision that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 internal conflict in Tigray.

But relations have since broken down again.