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Growing worries have emerged regarding the potential of military engagement between East African neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive rhetoric has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for passage to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has sparked a heated war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in 2023 that his government's sea access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a long-standing fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, making it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a military clash broke out in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Recent Statements from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the border - and hinted at the intention to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said the country's "error" of being denied passage to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "using武力".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been limited to short statements on social media from Communications Head Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a approach of reclaiming lost territory.

The information ministry alerted on mid-September that efforts to validate "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Border

So far, there are little evidence of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the two countries.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown completion events of numerous trainees at multiple army bases.

The head of personnel division of the military, the officer, recently said in an conversation that the military was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Historical Roots of the Tension

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, Eritrea was governed by colonial powers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British military before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor ended this agreement and the region became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long internal conflict occurred, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Independence was then confirmed by the population in a plebiscite in 1993.

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

Though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the two nations remained at odds.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The both leaders signed a declaration that the war was finished – a action that gained Abiy the prestigious award.

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

But relations have subsequently deteriorated once more.