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Increasing apprehensions have emerged over the potential of military engagement involving Horn of Africa countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as confrontational language has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has provoked a intense verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister initially stated publicly in last year that his government's access to the sea was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrea rejected.

Ties between the two countries have often been tense. After a prolonged struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, rendering it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a territorial conflict started in which more than 100,000 people died.

Recent Remarks from Ethiopia's Government

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief General Birhanu Jula have openly claimed ownership of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the desire to capture it through military means.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "rectified soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrean Answer to the Threats

Amid continuous challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's response has been restricted to short statements on social media from Information Minister the minister.

Officials have denied Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "risky" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back former lands.

Government spokespeople warned on mid-September that attempts to justify "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Preparations on the Region

There have been few indications of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, government media has displayed graduation ceremonies of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The director of human resources department of the armed forces, Lt Gen Hachalu Sheleme, commented lately in an interview that the army was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of youths" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our enemies".

Past Origins of the Conflict

For more than half a century from the late 19th century, Eritrea was administered by colonial powers.

Following World War II, it was then administered by the UK forces before becoming a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this system and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year civil war occurred, finishing with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Autonomy was then confirmed by Eritreans in a referendum in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, resulting in hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a truce in 2000, it was partially applied, and the both countries stayed at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the war was concluded – a decision that earned the Prime Minister the prestigious award.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet ties have since broken down again.