🔗 Share this article

Growing apprehensions have emerged about the possibility of armed conflict between East African countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as confrontational rhetoric has intensified in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, calls for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has triggered a fierce war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his nation's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a long-standing battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, making it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war broke out in which numerous people died.

Recent Statements from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have directly stated control of Eritrea's maritime facility of Assab – about 60km from the border - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.

In early September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "mistake" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea's separation would be "addressed tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrean Reaction to the Threats

Despite persistent threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been restricted to short statements on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry describing it as "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a strategy of retaking previous domains.

Government spokespeople alerted on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Preparations on the Region

So far, there are no reports of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, government media has displayed completion events of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The head of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, stated recently in an conversation that the army was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Past Background of the Dispute

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, Eritrea was governed by Italian colonisers.

After the end of Italian rule, it was then administered by the British military before turning into a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this agreement and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A extended internal conflict followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then confirmed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their common border, causing war in 1998.

Though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors continued at in dispute.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two endorsed a declaration that the hostilities was finished – a action that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The both administrations were then allies in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated anew.