Intensifying War of Words Among Ethiopia and Eritrea Sparks Concerns of Armed Clash

Mounting apprehensions have emerged over the potential of military engagement involving East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive rhetoric has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, calls for passage to the Red Sea through Eritrea has sparked a intense war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in the previous year that his government's access to the sea was an vital issue, statements that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Ties between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, making it cut off from the sea.

Subsequently, a military clash erupted in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Government

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean maritime facility of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "mistake" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "using武力".

Eritrean Reaction to the Claims

Despite ongoing warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been confined to concise remarks on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for maritime entry calling it "dangerous" and a "harmful plan" of "expansionism" – a approach of claiming back former lands.

Eritrean authorities alerted on 16 September that moves to justify "flagrant aggression" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Ground

So far, there are few indications of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the neighboring states.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The head of personnel division of the armed forces, General Hachalu, recently said in an conversation that the army was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Previous Roots of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was administered by colonial powers.

After World War II, it was then administered by the British military before turning into a associated territory of Ethiopia.

However in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this agreement and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year civil war followed, ending with military reversal in 1991. Independence was then approved by voters in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the exact location of their mutual frontier, causing conflict in 1998.

Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the two nations remained at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a statement that the war was concluded – a decision that won the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's 2020-2022 internal conflict in the northern region.

But diplomatic connections have since broken down anew.