Escalating War of Words Among Ethiopia and Eritrea Raises Concerns of Military Confrontation

Growing worries are present regarding the chance of warfare involving Horn of Africa neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as aggressive rhetoric has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for passage to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has provoked a intense war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in the previous year that his country's maritime access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the two countries have regularly been difficult. After a long-standing battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it landlocked.

Subsequently, a border war broke out in which numerous people lost their lives.

Current Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated control of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the border - and implied the wish to capture it through military means.

Recently, the Prime Minister said the country's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "addressed in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "by force".

Eritrean Response to the Threats

Amid ongoing challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a policy of retaking previous domains.

Eritrean authorities warned on recently that attempts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Ground

There have been little evidence of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nevertheless, in the country, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at different defense facilities.

The leader of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, stated recently in an conversation that the army was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Historical Background of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was ruled by Italian colonisers.

After World War II, it was then administered by the British military before evolving into a associated territory of Ethiopia.

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A extended internal conflict occurred, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Autonomy was then approved by voters in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, leading to conflict in 1998.

Though this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors remained at loggerheads.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrean President the president. The two endorsed a announcement that the war was finished – a move that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in the country's 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.

Yet relations have later worsened anew.