Escalating Verbal Conflict Involving Ethiopia and Eritrea Raises Concerns of Military Confrontation

Mounting apprehensions exist about the potential of armed conflict involving East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile language has intensified in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for entry to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has provoked a fierce rhetorical conflict.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in the previous year that his government's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. After a long-standing fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a extensive maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

In 1998, a territorial conflict broke out in which over a hundred thousand people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said the country's "error" of losing access to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrea's Response to the Statements

Despite ongoing threats from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been restricted to short statements on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on recently that moves to justify "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Region

There have been no reports of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the two countries.

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

The leader of personnel division of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an interview that the army was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a signal to our adversaries".

Past Origins of the Tension

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, Eritrea was governed by Italian rulers.

Following Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the UK forces before turning into a integrated region of Ethiopia.

However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this arrangement and the region became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle occurred, finishing with military reversal in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then approved by voters in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their common border, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries remained at odds.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders signed a statement that the hostilities was finished – a decision that gained Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's recent internal conflict in the northern region.

However relations have later worsened anew.