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Growing worries have emerged over the potential of military engagement involving East African countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational language has ratcheted up in the last month.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, demands for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a heated war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed initially stated publicly in the previous year that his nation's maritime access was an vital issue, statements that Eritrea ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged struggle for freedom, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, rendering it cut off from the sea.

Five years later, a military clash broke out in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Latest Remarks from Ethiopian Officials

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the boundary - and suggested the intention to capture it through military means.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a result of Eritrea secession would be "corrected tomorrow".

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

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

In the face of persistent challenges from Ethiopia, Eritrea's response has been restricted to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopian requests for sea access calling it "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "territorial claims" – a strategy of reclaiming former lands.

The information ministry alerted on recently that efforts to justify "obvious provocation" would have significant repercussions for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Activities on the Region

Currently, there are no reports of large-scale army activities in the border areas between the two countries.

However, in the country, government media has shown graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at various military training camps.

The head of staff section of the military, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "reliable position" as "tens of thousands of youths" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our opponents".

Previous Background of the Conflict

For more than half a century from 1890, the territory was governed by Italian colonisers.

After Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the British administration before evolving into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

But in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I terminated this arrangement and the region became fully incorporated into the Ethiopian state.

A three-decade long armed struggle occurred, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Autonomy was then approved by the population in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the exact location of their shared boundary, leading to war in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the two nations remained at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a announcement that the war was over – a action that earned Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize.

The two governments were then cooperators in Ethiopia's previous armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet diplomatic connections have later worsened once more.