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Mounting concerns are present over the potential of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as aggressive rhetoric has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

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

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in 2023 that his government's access to the sea was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have frequently been strained. Following a long-standing battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war erupted in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and hinted at the wish to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "corrected soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "through military action".

Eritrean Answer to the Claims

In the face of persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to short statements on X from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry calling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a strategy of claiming back lost territory.

The information ministry warned on 16 September that attempts to justify "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Border

So far, there are few indications of major military movements in the boundary zones between the both nations.

However, in the country, state television has broadcast training completions of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The director of human resources department of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an conversation that the army was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Previous Roots of the Tension

For over fifty years from 1890, the territory was ruled by Italian colonisers.

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

Yet in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor ended this arrangement and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

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

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, leading to war in 1998.

Although this finished in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries remained at odds.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders signed a declaration that the hostilities was concluded – a decision that gained the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then allies in Ethiopia's recent civil war in the northern region.

Yet relations have since broken down once more.