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Growing worries exist about the possibility of armed conflict among Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational rhetoric has intensified in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has triggered a fierce war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in the previous year that his country's sea access was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Diplomatic connections between the two countries have regularly been difficult. After a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

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

Recent Remarks from Ethiopia's Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and implied the intention to capture it through military means.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of being denied passage to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "addressed tomorrow".

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

Eritrea's Reaction to the Threats

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to brief comments on X from Information Minister the minister.

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a strategy of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry warned on recently that attempts to justify "obvious provocation" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Border

So far, there are no reports of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, government media has broadcast graduation ceremonies of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The leader of staff section of the armed forces, General Hachalu, commented lately in an conversation that the army was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of recruits" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, the territory was governed by Italian rulers.

Following Italy's defeat, it was then controlled by the UK forces before evolving into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Autonomy was then approved by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, causing conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries continued at in dispute.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders agreed to a declaration that the hostilities was over – a decision that earned Abiy the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in the country's 2020-2022 civil war in the northern region.

But ties have since broken down once more.