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Growing concerns are present about the possibility of warfare involving Horn of Africa countries, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile language has intensified in the last month.

What Did Ethiopia Declared?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for entry to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a intense verbal exchange.

The Ethiopian leader previously announced in last year that his government's sea access was an vital issue, comments that Eritrea ignored.

Diplomatic connections between the both governments have often been tense. After a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) maritime frontage, officially seceded from Ethiopian rule in 1993, making it landlocked.

In 1998, a border war broke out in which over a hundred thousand people lost their lives.

Current Remarks from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrea's coastal city of Assab – about 60km from the frontier - and hinted at the desire to take it by force.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "mistake" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "corrected in the future".

The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, ex-military officer Bacha, said that the port was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrea's Answer to the Statements

In the face of ongoing warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to concise remarks on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopia's demand for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a strategy of retaking lost territory.

Government spokespeople warned on 16 September that attempts to validate "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Movements on the Border

So far, there are few indications of large-scale army activities in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

Nonetheless, in Ethiopia, national TV has shown graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at various military training camps.

The head of human resources department of the defense force, the officer, recently said in an conversation that the defense forces was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of youths" were joining it, which he said was "a warning to our adversaries".

Previous Roots of the Tension

For over fifty years from the late 19th century, the territory was governed by Italian colonisers.

Following World War II, it was then managed by the British military before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

Yet in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this agreement and the region became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict followed, concluding with Ethiopia's defeat in the early 1990s. Sovereignty was then endorsed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their shared boundary, resulting in war in 1998.

Though this ended in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors continued at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrean President President Isaias. The two signed a statement that the war was over – a decision that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The two governments were then cooperators in the country's 2020-2022 armed struggle in the northern region.

Yet relations have later worsened again.