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Growing apprehensions have emerged about the chance of military engagement between East African neighbors, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as hostile language has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

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

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in the previous year that his country's access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea ignored.

Ties between the two countries have regularly been difficult. Following a prolonged battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a long maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it cut off from the sea.

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

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted control of Eritrean coastal city of Assab – some 60 km from the border - and hinted at the wish to seize it militarily.

On 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia's "blunder" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "corrected soon".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be restored "through military action".

Eritrea's Reaction to the Claims

Despite ongoing threats from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to brief comments on social media from Communications Head the minister.

The minister has dismissed Ethiopia's push for sea access labeling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "irredentism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

The information ministry alerted on 16 September that efforts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Security Activities on the Border

Currently, there are little evidence of large-scale army activities in the frontier regions between the both nations.

Nevertheless, in the country, state television has displayed training completions of numerous trainees at multiple army bases.

The director of staff section of the military, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the military was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Historical Background of the Dispute

For over fifty years from 1890, the territory was ruled by Italian colonisers.

Following the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British military before turning into a integrated region of the Ethiopian empire.

However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this system and Eritrea became fully incorporated into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long civil war followed, ending with military reversal in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then endorsed by the population in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the exact location of their mutual frontier, leading to war in 1998.

Though this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was partially applied, and the two nations remained at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President the president. The both leaders agreed to a announcement that the conflict was finished – a decision that earned Abiy the international recognition.

The both administrations were then cooperators in the country's recent armed struggle in Tigray.

But relations have later worsened once more.