🔗 Share this article

Growing concerns exist over the possibility of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for passage to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has sparked a fierce war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in 2023 that his country's sea access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Relations between the neighboring nations have often been tense. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, making it landlocked.

Subsequently, a military clash broke out in which numerous people died.

Recent Remarks from Ethiopian Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader the army commander have publicly asserted sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and suggested the intention to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said the country's "error" of losing entry to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "rectified in the future".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

Despite continuous threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to concise remarks on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry calling it "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

Government spokespeople warned on 16 September that attempts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Region

Currently, there are little evidence of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the two countries.

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

The director of human resources department of the military, the officer, recently said in an conversation that the army was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Tension

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was administered by colonial powers.

Following World War II, it was then managed by the UK forces before evolving into a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in 1962 the ruler ended this system and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year armed struggle occurred, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then endorsed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the both countries continued at in dispute.

This changed in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a declaration that the hostilities was finished – a move that earned Abiy the international recognition.

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

But diplomatic connections have since broken down again.