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Mounting apprehensions have emerged over the potential of armed conflict involving Horn of Africa neighbours, the Ethiopian government and the Eritrean government, as hostile rhetoric has intensified in recent weeks.

What Has Ethiopia Stated?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for access to the sea coast through Eritrea has provoked a heated rhetorical conflict.

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

Relations between the two countries have regularly been difficult. After a decades-long fight for sovereignty, the Eritrean state, which has a long maritime frontage, formally separated from Ethiopian rule in 1993, leaving it cut off from the sea.

In 1998, a territorial conflict started in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Recent Statements from Ethiopia's Government

Abiy and army chief the army commander have openly claimed sovereignty of Eritrean coastal city of the port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and implied the desire to take it by force.

In early September, Abiy said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the sea as a because of Eritrea secession would be "corrected soon".

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

Eritrean Response to the Threats

Despite ongoing challenges from Ethiopian officials, Eritrea's reaction has been confined to concise remarks on online platforms from Information Minister Yemane G..

Officials have denied Ethiopia's push for maritime entry calling it "risky" and a "toxic agenda" of "expansionism" – a approach of retaking lost territory.

Eritrean authorities cautioned on mid-September that attempts to justify "blatant hostility" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Military Movements on the Border

Currently, there are few indications of major military movements in the boundary zones between the neighboring states.

However, in the country, national TV has broadcast graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at multiple army bases.

The leader of human resources department of the defense force, General Hachalu, commented lately in an conversation that the army was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a message to our opponents".

Previous Roots of the Conflict

For decades from the late 19th century, the territory was ruled by Italian colonisers.

After World War II, it was then controlled by the British military before evolving into a associated territory of Ethiopia.

But in 1962 the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this arrangement and the region became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.

A extended armed struggle followed, finishing with the government's loss in 1991. Sovereignty was then endorsed by voters in a plebiscite in 1993.

Briefly in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the authorities in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they fell out over the precise positioning of their common border, resulting in war in 1998.

Though this finished in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors remained at odds.

This situation improved in 2018, when the Prime Minister made approaches to Eritrea's leader the president. The two signed a statement that the war was finished – a action that earned the Prime Minister the Nobel Peace Prize.

The neighboring states were then allies in the country's previous civil war in Tigray.

Yet ties have since broken down again.