🔗 Share this article

Growing apprehensions exist about the possibility of warfare involving Horn of Africa neighbors, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational rhetoric has escalated in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has sparked a fierce war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in last year that his country's sea access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. After a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive maritime frontage, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it without sea access.

Five years later, a territorial conflict started in which over a hundred thousand people were killed.

Latest Remarks from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed control of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and suggested the wish to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Statements

Amid continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been limited to brief comments on online platforms from Communications Head the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a strategy of reclaiming former lands.

The information ministry alerted on recently that attempts to justify "flagrant aggression" 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 Region

There have been few indications of significant troop deployments in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in Ethiopia, state television has shown graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at different defense facilities.

The leader of personnel division of the military, the officer, stated recently in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "tens of thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Past Background of the Tension

For decades from 1890, the territory was administered by colonial powers.

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

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this system and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle followed, ending with the government's loss in 1991. Sovereignty was then endorsed by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they clashed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations stayed at odds.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was concluded – a action that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's recent internal conflict in the northern region.

Yet ties have later worsened again.