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Mounting apprehensions exist about the potential of military engagement between Horn of Africa countries, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has sparked a intense verbal exchange.

PM Abiy Ahmed previously announced in last year that his government's access to the sea was an existential matter, statements that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a decades-long fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a long Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it landlocked.

Subsequently, a border war started in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Recent Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and suggested the intention to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "mistake" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "corrected tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrea's Answer to the Claims

Despite ongoing threats from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been confined to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's push for maritime entry labeling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a policy of retaking lost territory.

Government spokespeople alerted on 16 September that moves to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Ground

So far, there are little evidence of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, government media has broadcast completion events of thousands of cadets at multiple army bases.

The head of human resources department of the armed forces, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the army was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Previous Origins of the Conflict

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

After the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British administration before evolving into a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

However in 1962 the Ethiopian emperor ended this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle occurred, finishing with military reversal in 1991. Sovereignty was then confirmed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they disagreed over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

Though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the both countries continued at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The both leaders endorsed a declaration that the war was finished – a decision that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in the country's previous civil war in Tigray.

Yet relations have since broken down once more.