Increasing worries are present regarding the chance of military engagement among East African countries, Ethiopia and the Eritrean government, as hostile language has escalated in recent weeks.
Landlocked Ethiopia's calls for entry to the maritime outlet through Eritrean territory has sparked a intense war of words.
PM Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in last year that his nation's sea access was an crucial concern, statements that Eritrean authorities dismissed.
Ties between the two countries have frequently been strained. After a long-standing fight for sovereignty, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) sea border, legally broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, making it without sea access.
In 1998, a territorial conflict broke out in which more than 100,000 people lost their lives.
Abiy and army chief the army commander have publicly asserted control of Eritrean southern port of the port of Assab – about 60km from the boundary - and hinted at the intention to take it by force.
On 1 September, the Prime Minister said the country's "blunder" of being denied passage to the Red Sea as a due to Eritrea secession would be "rectified soon".
The Ethiopian envoy to neighboring Kenya, former General Bacha Debele, said that Assab was "Ethiopian property" and would be returned "by force".
In the face of ongoing challenges from Ethiopian officials, Asmara's position has been restricted to brief comments on online platforms from Communications Head Yemane G..
He has rejected Ethiopia's demand for access to the Red Sea calling it "hazardous" and a "negative policy" of "irredentism" – a policy of claiming back former lands.
Government spokespeople alerted on recently that attempts to legitimise "blatant hostility" would have serious consequences for the Ethiopian government and its neighbouring countries and is a "boundary that should not be crossed|violated|breached".
Currently, there are little evidence of major military movements in the border areas between the both nations.
Nevertheless, in Ethiopia, government media has shown completion events of many recruits at various military training camps.
The director of staff section of the military, the officer, commented lately in an interview that the military was in a "strong stance" as "numerous of young people" were enlisting, which he said was "a warning to our enemies".
For over fifty years from the late 19th century, the territory was ruled by Italian colonisers.
After Italy's defeat, it was then managed by the UK forces before becoming a federated part of the Ethiopian empire.
However in the early 1960s Emperor Haile Selassie I ended this agreement and Eritrea became totally absorbed into the Ethiopian state.
A three-decade long civil war followed, ending with Ethiopia's defeat in 1991. Sovereignty was then approved by the population in a vote in 1993.
For a few years in the 1990s, there were positive ties between the governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara, but they fell out over the specific demarcation of their shared boundary, resulting in conflict in 1998.
Although this concluded in a ceasefire agreement in 2000, it was incompletely executed, and the neighbors continued at in dispute.
This situation improved in 2018, when Abiy made overtures to Eritrea's leader the president. The both leaders signed a declaration that the war was finished – a move that gained the Prime Minister the international recognition.
The two governments were then partners in Ethiopia's 2020-2022 internal conflict in Tigray.
Yet ties have since broken down once more.
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