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Increasing worries are present regarding the chance of armed conflict between East African countries, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as aggressive rhetoric has escalated in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has sparked 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 ignored.

Ties between the neighboring nations have often been tense. After a long-standing struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it landlocked.

In 1998, a military clash erupted in which more than 100,000 people died.

Latest Remarks from Ethiopian Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated control of Eritrea's southern port of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and suggested the desire to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "error" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrea's Answer to the Threats

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to short statements on social media from Communications Head the minister.

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for sea access calling it "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of claiming back previous domains.

Eritrean authorities warned on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Region

Currently, there are few indications of large-scale army activities in the frontier regions between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in the country, government media has shown training completions of many recruits at different defense facilities.

The head of personnel division of the military, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the army was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Historical Background of the Tension

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

Following World War II, it was then managed by the British military before evolving into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor terminated this agreement and Eritrea became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year armed struggle ensued, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Independence was then endorsed by Eritreans in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they disagreed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, leading to war in 1998.

Though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries remained at loggerheads.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a declaration that the war was over – a move that won the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous internal conflict in the northern region.

Yet relations have since broken down again.