Escalating Verbal Conflict Among Ethiopian Government and Eritrea Triggers Concerns of Armed Clash

Increasing concerns are present regarding the possibility of military engagement involving East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as aggressive rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's requests for access to the Red Sea through Eritrean territory has provoked a fierce war of words.

The Ethiopian leader first openly declared in the previous year that his country's sea access was an existential matter, comments that Eritrean authorities rejected.

Relations between the neighboring nations have often been tense. After a long-standing fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in 1993, rendering it cut off from the sea.

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

Latest Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and suggested the intention to capture it through military means.

In early September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be restored "through military action".

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

In the face of persistent threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been restricted to short statements on social media from Communications Head the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a approach of claiming back former lands.

The information ministry cautioned on 16 September that moves to justify "obvious provocation" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Border

So far, there are few indications of significant troop deployments in the border areas between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, government media has broadcast completion events of numerous trainees at various military training camps.

The director of personnel division of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an interview that the army was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Previous Origins of the Conflict

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was ruled by colonial powers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British military before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in 1962 the ruler ended this agreement and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long internal conflict ensued, ending with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by the population in a referendum in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were good relations between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, resulting in conflict in 1998.

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

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President President Isaias. The two endorsed a statement that the hostilities was over – a move that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

But relations have subsequently deteriorated once more.