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Increasing worries are present regarding the possibility of armed conflict involving East African neighbors, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile discourse has intensified in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for passage to the sea coast through Eritrea has sparked a heated verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister initially stated publicly in last year that his country's sea access was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrea rejected.

Relations between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a prolonged fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it without sea access.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict broke out in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and suggested the desire to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "corrected soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "using武力".

Eritrean Response to the Claims

Despite persistent warnings from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been confined to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for maritime entry calling it "dangerous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a approach of claiming back lost territory.

Government spokespeople cautioned on mid-September that attempts to justify "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Border

So far, there are little evidence of major military movements in the boundary zones between the two countries.

Nevertheless, in the country, state television has shown completion events of thousands of cadets at different defense facilities.

The director of staff section of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an conversation that the military was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Past Roots of the Conflict

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was administered by Italian colonisers.

Following World War II, it was then administered by the British administration before evolving into a federated part of Ethiopia.

But in the early 1960s the ruler ended this agreement and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war followed, finishing with military reversal in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then endorsed by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, causing conflict in 1998.

Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors remained at odds.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders signed a announcement that the war was concluded – a decision that earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The both administrations were then allies in the country's previous armed struggle in the northern region.

However diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated anew.