🔗 Share this article

Growing worries exist about the chance of armed conflict among Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as confrontational rhetoric has escalated in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Stated?

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

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his government's maritime access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it landlocked.

Five years later, a military clash erupted in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Government

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "error" of losing access to the sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "corrected in the future".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrean Answer to the Threats

Despite continuous threats from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to concise remarks on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking former lands.

Government spokespeople warned on 16 September that attempts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Border

So far, there are few indications of significant troop deployments in the border areas between the two countries.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, state television has broadcast training completions of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The head of personnel division of the military, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Previous Origins of the Dispute

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was administered by Italian rulers.

After the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British military before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

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

A thirty-year armed struggle ensued, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then confirmed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, resulting in war in 1998.

Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the both countries continued at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a announcement that the hostilities was finished – a decision that gained the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray.

Yet diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated anew.