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Increasing concerns have emerged regarding the possibility of warfare between East African neighbors, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has escalated in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has provoked a heated rhetorical conflict.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in the previous year that his country's maritime access was an crucial concern, statements that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Ties between the two countries have often been tense. Following a long-standing battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a long sea border, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it without sea access.

Five years later, a military clash broke out in which more than 100,000 people died.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and implied the wish to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

In the face of continuous challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to concise remarks on social media from Information Minister the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea describing it as "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a approach of claiming back previous domains.

Eritrean authorities alerted on mid-September that moves to justify "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Border

So far, there are few indications of major military movements in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

However, in the country, national TV has broadcast completion events of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The leader of staff section of the armed forces, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the army was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Dispute

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

Following World War II, it was then managed by the UK forces before evolving into a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long internal conflict followed, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then confirmed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations continued at in dispute.

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

The both administrations were then partners in the country's 2020-2022 armed struggle in Tigray.

But ties have since broken down again.