Increasing apprehensions have emerged over the possibility of military engagement between East African neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has intensified in the past few weeks.
Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a fierce verbal exchange.
Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in 2023 that his government's maritime access was an existential matter, statements that Eritrea rejected.
Relations between the both governments have frequently been strained. Following a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, making it cut off from the sea.
In 1998, a military clash broke out in which numerous people were killed.
Prime Minister Abiy and army chief the army commander have openly claimed ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.
On 1 September, Abiy said the country's "error" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "addressed soon".
Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be given back "through military action".
In the face of persistent threats from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been confined to concise remarks on X from Information Minister Yemane G..
The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for sea access describing it as "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a strategy of claiming back previous domains.
The information ministry cautioned on mid-September that moves to justify "obvious provocation" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".
Currently, there are no reports of major military movements in the boundary zones between the two countries.
Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, government media has broadcast training completions of many recruits at different defense facilities.
The head of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an conversation that the military was in a "strong stance" as "tens of thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".
For over fifty years from 1890, the territory was governed by Italian rulers.
After Italy's defeat, it was then managed by the British military before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.
Yet in the early 1960s the ruler terminated this arrangement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.
A three-decade long internal conflict ensued, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then confirmed by voters in a referendum in 1993.
Briefly in the 1990s, there were good relations between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they clashed over the precise positioning of their common border, causing conflict in 1998.
Even though this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was partially applied, and the neighbors remained at in dispute.
This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two endorsed a declaration that the hostilities was concluded – a action that won Abiy the prestigious award.
The neighboring states were then allies in Ethiopia's recent civil war in Tigray.
But diplomatic connections have subsequently deteriorated once more.
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