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Growing worries exist about the chance of warfare involving Horn of Africa neighbors, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as confrontational discourse has intensified in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has provoked a intense war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in 2023 that his government's access to the sea was an vital issue, statements that Eritrea rejected.

Ties between the both governments have often been tense. After a long-standing battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, making it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a territorial conflict started in which numerous people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopian Government

Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have openly claimed control of Eritrea's coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and hinted at the wish to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "error" of losing access to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "rectified soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrean Reaction to the Threats

Despite persistent warnings from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to short statements on online platforms from Information Minister the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea calling it "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a policy of claiming back former lands.

The information ministry warned on recently that attempts to legitimise "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Ground

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

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, state television has displayed graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at multiple army bases.

The leader of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, stated recently in an interview that the military was in a "reliable position" as "many thousands of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Conflict

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian rulers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then administered by the UK forces before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this agreement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict followed, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Independence was then endorsed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, leading to war in 1998.

Although this finished in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors stayed at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrean President the president. The two agreed to a declaration that the conflict was concluded – a action that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

But diplomatic connections have since broken down once more.