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Increasing apprehensions have emerged over the possibility of military engagement between Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has intensified in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for passage to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has sparked a intense verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his nation's maritime access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the two countries have frequently been strained. Following a long-standing struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war broke out in which over a hundred thousand people were killed.

Current Comments from Ethiopian Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have directly stated ownership of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and implied the desire to take it by force.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be restored "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Amid ongoing challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's push for sea access describing it as "risky" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

Government spokespeople cautioned on 16 September that attempts to justify "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbouring countries and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Region

So far, there are no reports of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in Ethiopia, national TV has displayed graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The director of staff section of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, recently said in an conversation that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "many thousands of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Past Origins of the Tension

For over fifty years from 1890, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

After Italy's defeat, it was then managed by the British administration before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s the ruler terminated this system and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A extended internal conflict followed, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then approved by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, causing conflict in 1998.

Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the two nations continued at in dispute.

This ended 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 action that gained Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous armed struggle in the northern region.

But ties have later worsened anew.