Rising War of Words Between Ethiopia and Eritrea Raises Anxieties of Military Confrontation

Growing apprehensions have emerged about the potential of armed conflict involving East African countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as aggressive discourse has intensified in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a heated war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in last year that his government's access to the sea was an vital issue, remarks that Eritrea rejected.

Relations between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, making it without sea access.

In 1998, a military clash erupted in which over a hundred thousand people died.

Current Remarks from Ethiopian Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the border - and implied the desire to seize it militarily.

In early September, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing access to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "through military action".

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

In the face of continuous warnings from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been restricted to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopian requests for maritime entry labeling it "dangerous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a approach of reclaiming lost territory.

Eritrean authorities warned on 16 September that efforts to validate "flagrant aggression" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its regional partners and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Activities on the Border

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

However, in the country, government media has broadcast training completions of many recruits at various military training camps.

The director of personnel division of the military, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, stated recently in an conversation that the army was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a signal to our adversaries".

Past Background of the Conflict

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was ruled by Italian colonisers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the British military before becoming a integrated region of Ethiopia.

Yet in 1962 the Ethiopian emperor ended this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war followed, finishing with military reversal in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then endorsed by the population in a vote in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, resulting in conflict in 1998.

Though this ended in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations stayed at odds.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the war was finished – a move that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous civil war in Tigray.

However ties have subsequently deteriorated once more.