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Growing apprehensions exist regarding the chance of military engagement involving Horn of Africa neighbors, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has sparked a fierce verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister initially stated publicly in last year that his country's access to the sea was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a long Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in 1993, rendering it without sea access.

Five years later, a territorial conflict broke out in which numerous people were killed.

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Officials

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and hinted at the desire to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, Abiy said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea's separation would be "addressed soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be given back "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Statements

Despite persistent challenges from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been restricted to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea calling it "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a approach of claiming back former lands.

Eritrean authorities alerted on mid-September that attempts to validate "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Region

Currently, there are little evidence of significant troop deployments in the border areas between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, state television has shown training completions of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The director of staff section of the military, the officer, commented lately in an conversation that the military was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of young people" were entering service, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Conflict

For decades from the late 19th century, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the UK forces before becoming a associated territory of Ethiopia.

But in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor ended this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A extended armed struggle ensued, ending with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then endorsed by voters in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, causing hostilities in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries stayed at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two agreed to a declaration that the war was finished – a move that gained Abiy the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then allies in Ethiopia's previous internal conflict in the northern region.

Yet diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated once more.