🔗 Share this article

Increasing apprehensions exist about the potential of armed conflict among Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile discourse has ratcheted up in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has provoked a intense rhetorical conflict.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his country's maritime access was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrea rejected.

Ties between the two countries have often been tense. Following a long-standing fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it cut off from the sea.

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

Current Comments from Ethiopian Leadership

Abiy and military leader the army commander have openly claimed control of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and suggested the intention to take it by force.

In early September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "error" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "rectified in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

In the face of continuous challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to concise remarks on social media from Information Minister Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access calling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a policy of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry cautioned on mid-September that efforts to legitimise "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Region

There have been little evidence of major military movements in the boundary zones between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, state television has broadcast completion events of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The leader of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of youths" were joining it, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".

Historical Background of the Conflict

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

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

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

A thirty-year civil war occurred, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their common border, resulting in war in 1998.

Although this ended in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors continued at odds.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the war was finished – a decision that earned the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then allies in Ethiopia's recent armed struggle in the northern region.

But relations have later worsened again.