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Increasing worries are present over the potential of warfare between East African neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has provoked a intense verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister initially stated publicly in 2023 that his country's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a military clash erupted in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Latest Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and hinted at the intention to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be given back "by force".

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

Despite ongoing warnings from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been limited to brief comments on social media from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access describing it as "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a policy of retaking lost territory.

Eritrean authorities alerted on 16 September that moves to justify "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Border

So far, there are few indications of significant troop deployments in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, state television has broadcast graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The director of staff section of the military, General Hachalu, commented lately in an conversation that the defense forces was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Previous Roots of the Conflict

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian rulers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the UK forces before turning into a associated territory of Ethiopia.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict followed, ending with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

Even though this ended in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries stayed at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the conflict was over – a move that won the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.

However ties have subsequently deteriorated once more.