{"id":57371,"date":"2025-07-20T21:24:41","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T16:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/?p=57371"},"modified":"2025-07-20T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T16:54:41","slug":"eritrean-pres-warns-ethiopia-against-waging-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/57371\/eritrean-pres-warns-ethiopia-against-waging-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Eritrean pres. warns Ethiopia against waging war"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Eritrea and Ethiopia have had fraught relations since the former declared independence in 1993, with tens of thousands of people killed in a war between the two from 1998 to 2000.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the current tension, according to the Eritrean government, is landlocked Ethiopia\u2019s long-held desire for a seaport.<\/p>\n

Afwerki, who has ruled Eritrea with an iron fist since independence, warned Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that he would not be able to simply overwhelm his country by weight of numbers \u2014 Ethiopia\u2019s population is 130 million, compared to just 3.5 million people living in Eritrea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he thinks he can overwhelm (Eritrean forces) with human wave attack, (he is mistaken),\u201d Afwerki told state television channel Eri-TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore dragging the people of Ethiopia into unwanted wars or using them for another political agenda, the country\u2019s internal problems must be first addressed and solved,\u201d he said, AFP reported.<\/p>\n

He called Abiy\u2019s actions a \u201creckless\u201d attempt to \u201cdivert attention\u201d from domestic problems.<\/p>\n

Abiy signed a peace deal with Afwerki shortly after coming to power in 2018, but a violent conflict erupted in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray province from 2020 to 2022 as Eritrea\u2019s forces backed rebels there fighting Ethiopian troops.<\/p>\n

At least 600,000 people were killed in the conflict, according to an African Union estimate.<\/p>\n

Although a peace deal ended the fighting, Eritrea has maintained a military presence in Tigray and relations between the neighbors have deteriorated.<\/p>\n

Abiy has repeatedly said Ethiopia must have access to the sea, but by peaceful means.<\/p>\n

Last month, a report by a US monitoring group accused Eritrea of rebuilding its army and destabilizing its neighbors.<\/p>\n

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel criticized the report by NGO the Sentry and blamed \u201cthe new tension in the region\u201d on Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Eritrea had been under US arms sanctions that were lifted after the 2018 peace deal.<\/p>\n

Eritrea is a single-party state which consistently ranks among the worst in the world for rights \u2014 in last place for press freedom, according to Reporters without Borders, and 175th out of 183 for human development in 2022, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

MA\/PR<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eritrea and Ethiopia have had fraught relations since the former declared independence in 1993, with tens of thousands of people killed in a war between the two from 1998 to 2000. At the heart of the current tension, according to the Eritrean government, is landlocked Ethiopia\u2019s long-held desire for a seaport. Afwerki, who has ruled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[7103,7100,7110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accidents-en","category-international-en","category-politic-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zardis.net\/news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}