🔗 Share this article

Increasing concerns have emerged about the chance of warfare among East African neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has escalated in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has sparked a heated verbal exchange.

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

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have regularly been difficult. After a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long sea border, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it cut off from the sea.

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

Current Remarks from Ethiopia's Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated ownership of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and hinted at the desire to capture it through military means.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "error" of losing access to the sea as a result of Eritrea's separation would be "addressed in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrea's Reaction to the Threats

In the face of ongoing threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to short statements on online platforms from Communications Head the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for sea access calling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a approach of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry cautioned on mid-September that moves to justify "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Preparations on the Region

There have been little evidence of major military movements in the border areas between the neighboring states.

However, in Ethiopia, government media has displayed completion events of thousands of cadets at different defense facilities.

The head of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an conversation that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Tension

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, the territory was governed by Italian rulers.

After Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the British military before becoming a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s the ruler cancelled this arrangement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A extended internal conflict followed, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then confirmed by voters in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they disagreed over the exact location of their common border, leading to hostilities 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 ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The two agreed to a statement that the hostilities was over – a action that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then partners in Ethiopia's recent internal conflict in Tigray.

But ties have since broken down once more.