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Growing apprehensions are present over the potential of warfare among Horn of Africa countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational discourse has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has sparked a heated verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in 2023 that his nation's access to the sea was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the two countries have often been tense. After a decades-long battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a long sea border, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, rendering it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a territorial conflict started in which numerous people died.

Current Comments from Ethiopia's Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the border - and suggested the desire 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 Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

Despite persistent threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to brief comments on X from Information Minister Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea labeling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back former lands.

The information ministry alerted on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Preparations on the Region

So far, there are no reports of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the both nations.

Nonetheless, in the country, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of many recruits at different defense facilities.

The director of personnel division of the defense force, General Hachalu, recently said in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Previous Origins of the Dispute

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

Following World War II, it was then managed by the British administration before turning into a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A extended civil war followed, concluding with the government's loss in 1991. Independence was then confirmed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they clashed over the exact location of their common border, leading to conflict in 1998.

Though this ended in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the two nations stayed at odds.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two agreed to a statement that the war was over – a decision that gained the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The both administrations were then cooperators in the country's previous civil war in the northern region.

But diplomatic connections have since broken down once more.