Eritrea’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, September 12, that Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party government was “actively destabilising the Horn of Africa,” according to an AFP report carried by Arab News, The Hindu, and regional outlets including Kulu Media and Zegabi. The language is sharp even by recent standards between Asmara and Addis Ababa. It lands on top of a longer fight over Red Sea access, Assab, and how landlocked Ethiopia talks about maritime destiny while still fighting unfinished wars at home.
The Eritrean statement, as relayed by AFP, accused Addis Ababa of escalating war rhetoric for more than three years, challenging international treaties, and hosting, training, and financing what Asmara called subversive proxy groups with a regime-change agenda against Eritrea. Eritrea also accused the Ethiopian government of “harboring, supporting and actively encouraging” Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. Those RSF and opposition-support charges remain Eritrean allegations. Coverage by Kulu Media notes that Asmara did not present independently verified evidence in the AFP-cited statement, and that Abiy’s spokesman did not immediately comment when the wire asked. Treat the claims as contested politics, not proven fact.
The strategic core is still the water. Eritrea won independence in 1993. The 1998-2000 border war froze the relationship for nearly two decades. Ties thawed after Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, a rapprochement that helped deliver his Nobel Peace Prize. Eritrean forces later backed the federal army during the Tigray war. After Pretoria in late 2022 left Asmara outside the main deal, the relationship soured again. Eritrea has repeatedly framed Ethiopia’s push for secure Red Sea access, including talk involving Assab, as a sovereignty threat. Ethiopia says it wants peaceful negotiation over maritime access and rejects claims that it intends to seize Eritrean territory by force. An AFP fact check earlier this year also stressed that a February Ethiopian letter seeking dialogue on access through Assab was not the same as claiming the port as Ethiopian land. That distinction matters, and Asmara still hears expansionism in the rhetoric.
What makes Saturday’s statement more than another diplomatic slap is how it ties Red Sea politics to Horn littoral security. Shipping through Bab el-Mandeb and the southern Red Sea already carries war-risk premiums, diversion costs, and a widening Yemen conflict that has pushed fighting closer to waters facing Eritrea and Djibouti. Ethiopia’s cargo economy still depends heavily on Djibouti, with Berbera and other corridors in the mix. When Abiy Ahmed’s regime talks about “sovereign” sea access while Eritrea answers with destabilization charges, markets and navies both notice. Ports are not only symbols. They are insurance rates, vessel schedules, and the difference between a regional logistics story and a militarized coastline.
There is also a domestic echo Ethiopians should not miss. The same federal government that markets logistics hubs and maritime ambition is still prosecuting a grinding war in Amhara and managing a brittle postwar map in Tigray. External blame games with Asmara do not feed IDPs in Harbu or calm drone-exposed districts. They do, however, raise the risk that Red Sea rhetoric becomes another front where civilians pay first. Sudan’s war already sits on Ethiopia’s western doorstep. Eritrea’s RSF accusation, even if unverified, shows how quickly Addis Ababa, Asmara, Port Sudan politics, and southern Red Sea insecurity can be braided into one escalatory script.
For now, the sober reading is this. Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian government want durable sea access after decades of landlocked dependence. Eritrea under Isaias Afwerki treats Assab and sovereignty as non-negotiable and is answering with maximum diplomatic heat. The Prosperity Party government in Addis Ababa has not closed the gap between negotiation language and the fear Asmara sells at home. Until that gap narrows with verifiable diplomacy rather than proxy talk and war rhetoric, Red Sea access will remain a flashpoint that can rattle the Horn’s littoral security faster than any ribbon-cutting can steady it.
Sources:
Arab News / AFP The Hindu / AFP Kulu Media Zegabi AFP Fact Check
