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Increasing concerns are present regarding the possibility of warfare involving East African neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for passage to the Red Sea through Eritrea has sparked a intense verbal exchange.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in the previous year that his nation's maritime access was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea rejected.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have frequently been strained. After a prolonged battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, leaving it without sea access.

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

Recent Comments from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – about 60km from the border - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing access to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea's separation would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Answer to the Threats

Despite ongoing challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to short statements on social media from Communications Head Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for maritime entry describing it as "hazardous" and a "toxic agenda" of "irredentism" – a policy of reclaiming lost territory.

The information ministry warned on mid-September that efforts to justify "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Preparations on the Border

So far, there are little evidence of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in the country, government media has displayed training completions of many recruits at different defense facilities.

The leader of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an discussion 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 adversaries".

Past Roots of the Tension

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

Following Italy's defeat, it was then controlled by the British military before turning into a integrated region of Ethiopia.

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year civil war ensued, ending with military reversal in the early 1990s. Independence was then confirmed by Eritreans 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 shared boundary, leading to hostilities in 1998.

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

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the hostilities was concluded – a action that gained Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

However diplomatic connections have since broken down again.