🔗 Share this article

Mounting worries exist over the potential of military engagement between East African countries, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as hostile language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for passage to the Red Sea through Eritrea has sparked a heated rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his government's maritime access was an vital issue, comments that Eritrea ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it landlocked.

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

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the wish to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

In the face of persistent warnings from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to short statements on X from Information Minister the minister.

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for sea access calling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a approach of retaking former lands.

Government spokespeople cautioned on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Movements on the Region

There have been no reports of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at various military training camps.

The head of staff section of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Conflict

For decades from the late 19th century, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the UK forces before becoming a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in 1962 the ruler ended this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Sovereignty was then confirmed by the population in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, causing conflict in 1998.

Though this ended in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors continued at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders signed a announcement that the hostilities was finished – a action that won Abiy the international recognition.

The both administrations were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet relations have subsequently deteriorated anew.