Escalating War of Words Involving Ethiopian Government and Eritrea Triggers Concerns of Military Confrontation

Mounting worries exist about the possibility of warfare involving East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile language has intensified in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for passage to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has provoked a heated verbal exchange.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in the previous year that his government's sea access was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the both governments have often been tense. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopia in 1993, rendering it without sea access.

Five years later, a territorial conflict started in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief the army commander have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and hinted at the desire to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "addressed soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

Amid persistent warnings from Ethiopian officials, 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 sea access describing it as "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a policy of retaking lost territory.

The information ministry alerted on mid-September that attempts to validate "obvious provocation" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Region

Currently, there are few indications of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in the country, state television has displayed completion events of many recruits at different defense facilities.

The director of human resources department of the defense force, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, stated recently in an interview that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of recruits" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Previous Origins of the Tension

For decades from the late 19th century, the territory was governed by Italian colonisers.

Following World War II, it was then administered by the British military before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

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

A extended internal conflict occurred, finishing with the government's loss in 1991. Sovereignty was then approved by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their shared boundary, causing conflict in 1998.

Although this ended in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations stayed at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was finished – a action that gained Abiy the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then allies in the country's previous civil war in the northern region.

Yet relations have later worsened anew.