🔗 Share this article

Mounting concerns have emerged about the possibility of military engagement between Horn of Africa neighbors, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as aggressive language has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has sparked a heated rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in the previous year that his government's access to the sea was an vital issue, statements that Eritrea ignored.

Ties between the two countries have often been tense. Following a long-standing battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a extensive sea border, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in 1993, leaving it landlocked.

In 1998, a border war erupted in which over a hundred thousand people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated ownership of Eritrea's southern port of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and suggested the intention to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, Abiy said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "addressed soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access calling it "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a strategy of claiming back previous domains.

Government spokespeople cautioned on recently that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Region

Currently, there are little evidence of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, state television has shown completion events of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The head of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Historical Background of the Dispute

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

After the end of Italian rule, it was then controlled by the British military before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long internal conflict ensued, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then endorsed by voters in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the exact location of their shared boundary, resulting in conflict in 1998.

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

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader the president. The two endorsed a declaration that the war was finished – a move that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

Yet ties have subsequently deteriorated once more.