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Growing worries exist about the chance of warfare involving Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as aggressive language has intensified in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has sparked a fierce war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in the previous year that his country's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Ties between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it without sea access.

In 1998, a military clash erupted in which numerous people died.

Recent Statements from Ethiopian Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated control of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – about 60km from the border - and implied the desire to take it by force.

In early September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "error" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "rectified soon".

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

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

Amid ongoing threats from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been limited to brief comments on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for sea access labeling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking former lands.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on mid-September that efforts to validate "obvious provocation" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Border

So far, there are little evidence of significant troop deployments in the boundary zones between the two countries.

However, in Ethiopia, government media has shown completion events of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The director of staff section of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Previous Origins of the Conflict

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

After the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British administration before evolving into a integrated region of Ethiopia.

However in the early 1960s the ruler cancelled this arrangement and the region became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle occurred, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then approved by voters in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, resulting in war in 1998.

Though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the both countries stayed at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders endorsed a declaration that the war was concluded – a action that won the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.

Yet relations have since broken down anew.