🔗 Share this article

Growing worries are present over the potential of armed conflict involving East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational discourse has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the sea coast through Eritrea has sparked a heated war of words.

The Ethiopian leader previously announced in the previous year that his country's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Ties between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. After a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long maritime frontage, officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, making it without sea access.

Five years later, a border war erupted in which numerous people were killed.

Recent Comments from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and implied the desire to take it by force.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "rectified tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "through military action".

Eritrean Answer to the Claims

Despite persistent threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to brief comments on online platforms from Communications Head the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea labeling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on mid-September that moves to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Region

Currently, there are no reports of significant troop deployments in the boundary zones between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in the country, government media has displayed completion events of numerous trainees at various military training camps.

The head of personnel division of the armed forces, the officer, stated recently in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Previous Roots of the Dispute

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

Following Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the UK forces before turning into a associated territory of Ethiopia.

But in 1962 the ruler terminated this agreement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

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

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they disagreed over the specific demarcation of their shared boundary, leading to war in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors remained at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was over – a action that won the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The both administrations were then partners in the country's previous civil war in Tigray.

But relations have since broken down again.