🔗 Share this article

Mounting worries have emerged regarding the potential of armed conflict among Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as aggressive language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for passage to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a fierce rhetorical conflict.

The Ethiopian leader previously announced in 2023 that his country's maritime access was an vital issue, comments that Eritrea rejected.

Ties between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a long-standing struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long maritime frontage, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it landlocked.

In 1998, a border war erupted in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Government

Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and hinted at the desire to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be given back "by force".

Eritrean Response to the Threats

Despite continuous threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to short statements on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea calling it "dangerous" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

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

Military Activities on the Region

Currently, there are few indications of major military movements in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

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

The leader of staff section of the armed forces, the officer, commented lately in an conversation that the army was in a "reliable position" as "many thousands of youths" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Tension

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was ruled by Italian colonisers.

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

But in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A extended civil war occurred, finishing with the government's loss in 1991. Autonomy was then endorsed by Eritreans in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors remained at loggerheads.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders endorsed a declaration that the conflict was concluded – a decision that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then partners in Ethiopia's previous civil war in Tigray.

However relations have subsequently deteriorated once more.