🔗 Share this article

Growing concerns are present regarding the possibility of warfare involving East African neighbors, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as aggressive rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for passage to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a heated war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in the previous year that his nation's maritime access was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrea rejected.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, officially seceded from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

Subsequently, a border war started in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have directly stated ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Reaction to the Threats

Amid persistent threats from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been limited to short statements on X from Information Minister Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for access to the Red Sea describing it as "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of reclaiming lost territory.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on recently that moves to validate "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Ground

Currently, there are no reports of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the neighboring states.

However, in the country, state television has shown completion events of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The leader of personnel division of the armed forces, General Hachalu, commented lately in an discussion that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a signal to our adversaries".

Historical Origins of the Conflict

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

After World War II, it was then administered by the UK forces before turning into a federated part of Ethiopia.

Yet in 1962 the ruler cancelled this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A extended armed struggle ensued, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Independence was then endorsed by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, causing war in 1998.

Though this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the both countries continued at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The both leaders agreed to a statement that the conflict was over – a decision that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then allies in the country's previous internal conflict in the northern region.

Yet relations have later worsened once more.