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Growing worries have emerged regarding the potential of warfare among East African countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile discourse has ratcheted up in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, calls for passage to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has sparked a heated war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his nation's maritime access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, leaving it landlocked.

Five years later, a territorial conflict erupted in which numerous people died.

Latest Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrean southern port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the border - and suggested the intention to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing access to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Threats

Amid ongoing challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea calling it "dangerous" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a approach of claiming back lost territory.

Eritrean authorities alerted on recently that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Ground

Currently, there are no reports of major military movements in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has broadcast training completions of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The director of human resources department of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an conversation that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Historical Roots of the Dispute

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

After the end of Italian rule, it was then administered by the British administration before turning into a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this arrangement and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year civil war followed, concluding with military reversal in 1991. Independence was then endorsed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the exact location of their shared boundary, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries remained at in dispute.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders endorsed a announcement that the conflict was over – a action that earned Abiy the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then allies in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 internal conflict in Tigray.

Yet relations have later worsened once more.