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Increasing worries are present regarding the potential of armed conflict involving East African neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has sparked a heated war of words.

The Ethiopian leader previously announced in last year that his country's sea access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrea ignored.

Ties between the neighboring nations have often been tense. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it without sea access.

Five years later, a territorial conflict erupted in which over a hundred thousand people lost their lives.

Recent Remarks from Ethiopian Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrean southern port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and hinted at the wish to take it by force.

In early September, Abiy said the country's "mistake" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be restored "using武力".

Eritrean Response to the Claims

In the face of continuous threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a policy of reclaiming former lands.

Eritrean authorities alerted on mid-September that moves to justify "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Border

There have been little evidence of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the two countries.

However, in the country, national TV has displayed graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The director of personnel division of the defense force, General Hachalu, commented lately in an interview that the military was in a "reliable position" as "many thousands of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Previous Background of the Dispute

For more than half a century from 1890, the territory was governed by Italian colonisers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the British military before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the ruler terminated this arrangement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A extended civil war occurred, concluding with the government's loss in 1991. Sovereignty was then approved by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their common border, resulting in hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors stayed at odds.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrean President the president. The two agreed to a statement that the war was concluded – a action that won Abiy the international recognition.

The both administrations were then partners in Ethiopia's recent civil war in the northern region.

But ties have later worsened anew.