🔗 Share this article

Increasing concerns exist about the potential of warfare between Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as aggressive rhetoric has intensified in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has sparked a heated rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in the previous year that his nation's sea access was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have often been tense. After a prolonged battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a long Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, rendering it cut off from the sea.

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

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief the army commander have directly stated ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and suggested the desire to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "error" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea's separation would be "addressed soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "using武力".

Eritrea's Reaction to the Claims

Amid ongoing warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea describing it as "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a strategy of claiming back lost territory.

Government spokespeople alerted on 16 September that attempts to legitimise "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Region

So far, there are no reports of major military movements in the border areas between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in the country, state television has broadcast graduation ceremonies of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The director of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an conversation that the army was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of recruits" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Dispute

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian rulers.

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

However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

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

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they disagreed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, resulting in conflict in 1998.

Although this finished in a truce in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors continued at odds.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a announcement that the conflict was over – a decision that gained Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

Yet ties have since broken down anew.