🔗 Share this article

Growing apprehensions have emerged regarding the potential of armed conflict among East African neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational language has intensified in the last month.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has sparked a fierce verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister initially stated publicly in the previous year that his country's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. After a long-standing struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, officially seceded from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it cut off from the sea.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict started in which more than 100,000 people died.

Recent Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean southern port of Assab – some 60 km from the boundary - and implied the intention to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing access to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "rectified tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Amid continuous warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been confined to brief comments on X from Communications Head the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea describing it as "risky" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a policy of reclaiming previous domains.

Eritrean authorities alerted on 16 September that efforts to validate "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Ground

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

However, in the country, national TV has broadcast graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The leader of personnel division of the armed forces, General Hachalu, stated recently in an discussion that the military was in a "strong stance" as "tens of thousands of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Previous Background of the Dispute

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

After Italy's defeat, it was then managed by the British administration before evolving into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s the ruler ended this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict ensued, concluding with military reversal in 1991. Autonomy was then approved by the population in a plebiscite in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Even though this finished in a truce in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the both countries remained at loggerheads.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders agreed to a statement that the war was finished – a action that gained Abiy the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's recent armed struggle in Tigray.

However ties have subsequently deteriorated anew.