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Growing concerns have emerged regarding the chance of warfare among East African neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive rhetoric has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for passage to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has triggered a heated war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in 2023 that his nation's access to the sea was an crucial concern, comments that Eritrean authorities ignored.

Relations between the both governments have often been tense. After a long-standing struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

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

Latest Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Abiy and army chief the army commander have directly stated control of Eritrea's southern port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and suggested the wish to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be returned "using武力".

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

Despite ongoing challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to concise remarks on X from Communications Head the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for sea access calling it "risky" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a policy of claiming back lost territory.

Eritrean authorities alerted on 16 September that efforts to validate "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Region

There have been no reports of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The head of personnel division of the armed forces, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Historical Origins of the Tension

For over fifty years from 1890, Eritrea was governed by Italian colonisers.

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

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this arrangement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year armed struggle ensued, ending with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then approved by Eritreans in a vote in 1993.

Temporarily in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, causing war in 1998.

Even though this finished in a truce in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors remained at in dispute.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders signed a declaration that the war was finished – a move that won Abiy the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then partners in Ethiopia's previous armed struggle in Tigray.

However ties have later worsened again.