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Mounting apprehensions exist regarding the chance of military engagement among East African neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as aggressive language has escalated in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

Landlocked Ethiopia's demands for access to the maritime outlet through Eritrea has provoked a intense war of words.

Ethiopian Prime Minister first openly declared in last year that his nation's sea access was an crucial concern, remarks that Eritrea rejected.

Relations between the both governments have frequently been strained. After a decades-long battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, legally broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, leaving it without sea access.

Five years later, a territorial conflict started in which over a hundred thousand people were killed.

Latest Statements from Ethiopia's Officials

Abiy and military leader General Birhanu Jula have publicly asserted ownership of Eritrea's maritime facility of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the desire to capture it through military means.

Recently, Abiy said the country's "mistake" of being denied passage to the sea as a because of Eritrea's separation would be "rectified soon".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "through military action".

Eritrean Reaction to the Statements

In the face of persistent warnings from Ethiopia, Eritrea's reaction has been restricted to short statements on social media from Information Minister Yemane G..

He has rejected Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "harmful plan" of "territorial claims" – a policy of claiming back previous domains.

The information ministry alerted on 16 September that attempts to validate "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for Ethiopia and its regional partners and is a "limit that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Region

Currently, there are few indications of major military movements in the frontier regions between the two countries.

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

The director of human resources department of the defense force, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the army was in a "secure situation" as "numerous of recruits" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".

Previous Roots of the Tension

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

After World War II, it was then controlled by the British administration before becoming a associated territory of the Ethiopian empire.

But in 1962 Emperor Haile Selassie I cancelled this arrangement and Eritrea became completely integrated into Ethiopia.

A three-decade long internal conflict followed, finishing with the government's loss in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then confirmed by the population in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the leadership in Addis Ababa and Eritrea's capital, but they clashed over the specific demarcation of their mutual frontier, leading to conflict in 1998.

Even though this concluded in a peace deal in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the both countries continued at loggerheads.

This changed in 2018, when the Prime Minister made overtures to Eritrea's leader President Isaias. The both leaders endorsed a announcement that the conflict was finished – a decision that gained Abiy the international recognition.

The neighboring states were then cooperators in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 armed struggle in Tigray.

But relations have subsequently deteriorated once more.