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Increasing worries have emerged regarding the possibility of military engagement among East African neighbours, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as aggressive discourse has ratcheted up in the past few weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for passage to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a fierce war of words.

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

Relations between the two countries have frequently been strained. After a decades-long fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, rendering it landlocked.

Five years later, a military clash erupted in which over a hundred thousand people were killed.

Current Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and military leader the army commander have directly stated sovereignty of Eritrea's coastal city of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the desire to capture it through military means.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "mistake" of losing entry to the sea as a due to Eritrean independence would be "addressed tomorrow".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that the port was "Ethiopia's wealth" and would be given back "using武力".

Eritrean Reaction to the Claims

In the face of continuous challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to brief comments on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for maritime entry labeling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "expansionism" – a approach of retaking former lands.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on recently that efforts to validate "flagrant aggression" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Movements on the Border

So far, there are no reports of major military movements in the border areas between the both nations.

Nonetheless, in the country, national TV has shown completion events of thousands of cadets at various military training camps.

The director of personnel division of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the military was in a "strong stance" as "many thousands of recruits" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Previous Origins of the Tension

For decades from the late 19th century, the territory was administered by Italian rulers.

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

However in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this arrangement and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A thirty-year internal conflict occurred, ending with military reversal in 1991. Independence was then endorsed by voters in a vote in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the authorities in Ethiopia's capital and Asmara, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their shared boundary, leading to hostilities in 1998.

Although this finished in a peace deal in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors continued at in dispute.

This ended in 2018, when Abiy made gestures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two signed a declaration that the conflict was over – a action that won the Prime Minister the international recognition.

The both administrations were then cooperators in the country's previous civil war in the northern region.

Yet diplomatic connections have later worsened once more.