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Mounting concerns have emerged over the chance of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive rhetoric has intensified in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for entry to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a fierce rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in the previous year that his nation's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the both governments have often been tense. After a long-standing fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, making it landlocked.

Five years later, a border war started in which numerous people were killed.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Government

Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and hinted at the intention to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said the country's "mistake" of losing access to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "corrected in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrea's Response to the Claims

Despite persistent threats from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been restricted to brief comments on X from Communications Head the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for sea access calling it "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking previous domains.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on 16 September that attempts to justify "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Border

Currently, there are little evidence of major military movements in the frontier regions between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, state television has displayed completion events of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The director of personnel division of the defense force, General Hachalu, commented lately in an interview that the military was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Past Roots of the Tension

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

Following World War II, it was then controlled by the British administration before evolving into a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this agreement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A extended armed struggle occurred, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then endorsed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the exact location of their shared boundary, resulting in conflict in 1998.

Although this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors stayed at in dispute.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The two endorsed a statement that the hostilities was over – a move that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

Yet relations have later worsened once more.