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Increasing apprehensions are present over the chance of armed conflict between East African countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational discourse has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has provoked a heated war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in the previous year that his country's maritime access was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Diplomatic connections between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long maritime frontage, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war started in which more than 100,000 people died.

Recent Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrean maritime facility of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the desire to take it by force.

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

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

In the face of continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been limited to brief comments on X from Communications Head Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a approach of claiming back former lands.

Government spokespeople cautioned on recently that moves to validate "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Border

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

However, in Ethiopia, state television has shown training completions of numerous trainees at multiple army bases.

The leader of staff section of the armed forces, the officer, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of youths" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Previous Origins of the Conflict

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was governed by colonial powers.

After the end of Italian rule, it was then controlled by the British administration before turning into a integrated region of Ethiopia.

However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A extended armed struggle followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then approved by voters in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the exact location of their common border, resulting in war in 1998.

Though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries stayed at odds.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders signed a statement that the conflict was concluded – a decision that gained the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in the country's previous civil war in Tigray.

Yet relations have subsequently deteriorated once more.