Rising War of Words Between Ethiopia and Eritrean Government Sparks Anxieties of Military Confrontation

Increasing apprehensions are present regarding the potential of military engagement involving East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile language has escalated in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has triggered a intense war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in 2023 that his government's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the two countries have regularly been difficult. After a decades-long battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, making it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a military clash broke out in which numerous people were killed.

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Government

Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the intention to seize it militarily.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "using武力".

Eritrean Response to the Threats

Amid persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to concise remarks on social media from Information Minister the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for maritime entry labeling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a policy of reclaiming former lands.

Eritrean authorities alerted on mid-September that moves to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Ground

There have been little evidence of significant troop deployments in the boundary zones between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, national TV has displayed training completions of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The director of personnel division of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, stated recently in an conversation that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Tension

For more than half a century from 1890, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

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

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this system and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long internal conflict followed, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then endorsed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

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

Though this ended in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations stayed at loggerheads.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders endorsed a announcement that the conflict was finished – a move that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then partners in the country's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

However ties have since broken down anew.