🔗 Share this article

Increasing worries have emerged about the potential of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive discourse has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Declared?

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

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in last year that his nation's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the both governments have regularly been difficult. After a long-standing battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a extensive maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a border war erupted in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Recent Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated control of Eritrea's southern port of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and implied the wish to take it by force.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "error" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "by force".

Eritrean Answer to the Statements

Amid persistent warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to concise remarks on online platforms from Communications Head the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a policy of reclaiming lost territory.

The information ministry cautioned on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Ground

There have been few indications of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in Ethiopia, government media has shown graduation ceremonies of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The leader of personnel division of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an interview that the army was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Previous Background of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian rulers.

Following World War II, it was then controlled by the British military before turning into a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this agreement and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A extended internal conflict occurred, concluding with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by voters in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the specific demarcation of their common border, leading to war in 1998.

Although this ended in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors continued at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made approaches to Eritrean President the president. The two endorsed a announcement that the conflict was over – a move that earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous internal conflict in the northern region.

But ties have subsequently deteriorated again.