Escalating Rhetorical Battle Between Ethiopian Government and Eritrea Raises Anxieties of Military Confrontation

Increasing worries exist about the possibility of warfare among Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile discourse has ratcheted up in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has sparked a fierce war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in the previous year that his government's access to the sea was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrea rejected.

Diplomatic connections between the neighboring nations have frequently been strained. Following a long-standing fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a long Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it without sea access.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict started in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Latest Remarks from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrean maritime facility of the port of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and suggested the intention to seize it militarily.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "mistake" of losing access to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "corrected in the future".

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

Eritrean Response to the Statements

In the face of persistent warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been confined to concise remarks on social media from Information Minister the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for maritime entry describing it as "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back former lands.

Government spokespeople warned on 16 September that moves to justify "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Border

So far, there are no reports of significant troop deployments in the frontier regions between the both nations.

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

The director of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an conversation that the army was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Historical Background of the Conflict

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian colonisers.

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

Yet in the early 1960s the ruler terminated this system and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A extended internal conflict ensued, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Autonomy was then confirmed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

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

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two endorsed a statement that the conflict was over – a move that won Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

However relations have later worsened again.