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Mounting apprehensions have emerged over the potential of military engagement involving Horn of Africa neighbours, the Ethiopian government and Eritrea, as hostile discourse has escalated in the past few weeks.

What Did Ethiopian Officials Stated?

Ethiopia's, being landlocked, requests for access to the sea coast through Eritrean territory has triggered a heated war of words.

PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his government's maritime access was an vital issue, statements that Eritrean authorities dismissed.

Relations between the neighboring nations have often been tense. Following a decades-long battle for independence, the Eritrean state, which has a extensive Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopian rule in the early 1990s, making it cut off from the sea.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict broke out in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.

Latest Statements from Ethiopia's Leadership

Prime Minister Abiy and army chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have openly claimed control of Eritrean southern port of Assab – approximately 60 kilometers from the frontier - and implied the wish to capture it through military means.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "blunder" of losing entry to the Red Sea as a because of Eritrean independence would be "addressed tomorrow".

Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "by force".

Eritrea's Reaction to the Threats

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

Officials have denied Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a approach of claiming back former lands.

The information ministry cautioned on recently that efforts to legitimise "obvious provocation" would have major implications for Ethiopia and its neighbors and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Movements on the Ground

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

Nevertheless, in the country, government media has broadcast completion events of many recruits at various military training camps.

The head of staff section of the defense force, the officer, commented lately in an discussion that the army was in a "reliable position" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a signal to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Tension

For decades from 1890, Eritrea was administered by Italian colonisers.

After the end of Italian rule, it was then managed by the British administration before becoming a federated part of Ethiopia.

However in 1962 the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this agreement and the region became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long civil war followed, finishing with military reversal in the early 1990s. Independence was then approved by Eritreans in a plebiscite in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were good relations between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they disagreed over the precise positioning of their shared boundary, causing hostilities in 1998.

Though this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors remained at loggerheads.

This ended in 2018, when the Prime Minister made gestures to Eritrea's leader the president. The two agreed to a statement that the hostilities was finished – a action that gained Abiy the international recognition.

The two governments were then partners in the country's 2020-2022 internal conflict in the northern region.

Yet relations have since broken down again.