🔗 Share this article

Growing worries are present regarding the potential of military engagement between East African countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as aggressive language has escalated in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Declared?

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

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his government's access to the sea was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Ties between the neighboring nations have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a extensive maritime frontage, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, making it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a border war started in which numerous people died.

Current Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Abiy and military leader the army commander have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and hinted at the intention to seize it militarily.

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

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that the port was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrean Answer to the Threats

In the face of continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been confined to concise remarks on X from Communications Head the minister.

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry describing it as "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a strategy of retaking former lands.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on recently that efforts to validate "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Border

So far, there are few indications of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the both nations.

Nonetheless, in the country, government media has displayed graduation ceremonies of many recruits at various military training camps.

The leader of staff section of the military, General Hachalu, commented lately in an discussion that the military was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a signal to our opponents".

Previous Roots of the Dispute

For more than half a century from 1890, the territory was ruled by Italian rulers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the British administration before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this system and the region became totally absorbed into Ethiopia.

A extended civil war ensued, concluding with military reversal in 1991. Sovereignty was then approved by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the exact location of their shared boundary, resulting in war in 1998.

Even though this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was partially applied, and the two nations remained at in dispute.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two endorsed a announcement that the conflict was over – a action that gained the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The both administrations were then allies in Ethiopia's previous civil war in Tigray.

But ties have subsequently deteriorated again.