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Increasing worries are present about the potential of military engagement between East African neighbours, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopian Officials Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for entry to the sea coast through Eritrea has sparked a heated verbal exchange.

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his government's sea access was an existential matter, remarks that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have often been tense. After a decades-long struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it landlocked.

Subsequently, a military clash started in which over a hundred thousand people lost their lives.

Current Comments from Ethiopian Officials

Abiy and army chief the army commander have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrean maritime facility of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and suggested the intention to capture it through military means.

Recently, the Prime Minister said Ethiopia's "blunder" of losing access to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "rectified tomorrow".

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

Eritrea's Response to the Threats

In the face of ongoing threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been limited to concise remarks on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopian requests for sea access describing it as "risky" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a strategy of retaking former lands.

Government spokespeople alerted on recently that moves to justify "obvious provocation" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Ground

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

However, in the country, government media has shown training completions of many recruits at multiple army bases.

The director of staff section of the defense force, General Hachalu, stated recently in an interview that the defense forces was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Previous Origins of the Dispute

For decades from 1890, the territory was administered by Italian rulers.

Following World War II, it was then managed by the British military before turning into a federated part of Ethiopia.

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this system and Eritrea became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A extended internal conflict occurred, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then confirmed by Eritreans in a vote in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they disagreed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, causing conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors stayed at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two endorsed a announcement that the war was over – a action that gained Abiy the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in the country's recent armed struggle in the northern region.

But diplomatic connections have since broken down again.