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Increasing worries have emerged over the possibility of armed conflict among Horn of Africa neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as confrontational rhetoric has intensified in the last month.

What Has Ethiopia Said?

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

Ethiopian Prime Minister previously announced in last year that his country's access to the sea was an crucial concern, statements that Eritrea dismissed.

Relations between the both governments have regularly been difficult. Following a decades-long struggle for freedom, the Eritrean state, which has a long sea border, formally separated from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, rendering it cut off from the sea.

Subsequently, a territorial conflict erupted in which more than 100,000 people died.

Latest Comments from Ethiopia's Leadership

Abiy and military leader Field Marshal Birhanu Jula have directly stated ownership of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – some 60 km from the frontier - and implied the wish to take it by force.

In early September, the Prime Minister said the country's "error" of losing access to the sea as a result of Eritrean independence would be "addressed in the future".

The Ethiopian envoy to Kenya, retired Gen Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "belonging to Ethiopia" and would be given back "through military action".

Eritrean Reaction to the Threats

Amid ongoing challenges from Ethiopia, Asmara's position has been restricted to brief comments on social media from Communications Head Yemane Gebremeskel.

He has rejected Ethiopia's push for access to the Red Sea describing it as "dangerous" and a "negative policy" of "territorial claims" – a policy of reclaiming former lands.

Eritrean authorities alerted on recently that moves to validate "blatant hostility" would have major implications for the Ethiopian government and its neighbors and is a "redline that should not be crossed|violated|breached".

Defense Preparations on the Region

There have been no reports of significant troop deployments in the border areas between the two countries.

Nevertheless, in the country, state television has shown graduation ceremonies of numerous trainees at different defense facilities.

The leader of human resources department of the armed forces, General Hachalu, recently said in an interview that the army was in a "secure situation" as "tens of thousands of young people" were joining it, which he said was "a message to our adversaries".

Previous Background of the Dispute

For more than half a century from 1890, Eritrea was administered by Italian colonisers.

Following Italy's defeat, it was then administered by the UK forces before turning into a integrated region of Ethiopia.

But in the early 1960s the Ethiopian emperor cancelled this system and the region became completely integrated into the Ethiopian state.

A thirty-year armed struggle ensued, ending with military reversal in the early 1990s. Autonomy was then approved by the population in a referendum in 1993.

For a few years in the 1990s, there were friendly connections between the governments in Ethiopia's capital and Eritrea's capital, but they disagreed over the precise positioning of their mutual frontier, resulting in war in 1998.

Although this concluded in a truce in 2000, it was never fully implemented, and the neighbors continued at in dispute.

This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. The two agreed to a announcement that the conflict was over – a decision that earned Abiy the prestigious award.

The both administrations were then partners in the country's recent civil war in the northern region.

However ties have since broken down again.