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Growing apprehensions exist about the possibility of warfare among Horn of Africa neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for passage to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has provoked a fierce verbal exchange.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in 2023 that his nation's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Relations between the two countries have often been tense. After a decades-long struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a long maritime frontage, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a border war started in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the desire to seize it militarily.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of losing access to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "rectified soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrea's Reaction to the Claims

Despite continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

The information ministry alerted on 16 September that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Region

There have been no reports of major military movements in the border areas between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has displayed completion events of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The head of staff section of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an interview that the army was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".

Past Background of the Tension

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was administered by colonial powers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then controlled by the UK forces before becoming a federated part of Ethiopia.

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and Eritrea became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle ensued, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by Eritreans in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their common border, resulting in hostilities in 1998.

Though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors stayed at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders signed a statement that the hostilities was concluded – a move that earned Abiy the prestigious award.

The two governments were then partners in Ethiopia's recent internal conflict in the northern region.

But ties have since broken down again.