Hundreds of Eritreans flee to Ethiopia – state radio
ADDIS ABABA, June 17 (Reuters) – More than 600 Eritreans have crossed into neighbouring Ethiopia in the last nine months seeking political asylum, state radio reported on Friday.
Up to 634 Eritreans opposed to the rule of President Isayas Afewerki, had crossed the border, the radio quoted police in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region as saying.
It said 117 were women while the rest were Eritrean soldiers, trainee soldiers or university students.
Eritrea said the report exaggerated the number who had left and accused Ethiopia of raising the issue to divert attention from tensions at home over its disputed May 15 elections.
Opposition allegations of fraud in Ethiopia’s parliamentary polls triggered demonstrations in the capital Addis Ababa last week, and at least 36 people were killed when police opened fire on rock-throwing protesters.
In Asmara, Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu told Reuters Ethiopian media had issued the report as a diversion.
“People cross borders for so many reasons. They want to divert attention away from the internal crisis at a time when they are putting into detention not hundreds, but thousands of Ethiopians,” he said.
“I can’t say that people are not crossing into Ethiopia, but the number is exaggerated. It is a natural phenomenon,” he said.
Relations between the two Horn of Africa countries have remained bitter since a 1998-2000 war centred on the frontier town of Badme in which more than 70,000 people were killed.
In February, the European Union expressed concern over what it said was a military build-up on both sides of the border.
An agreement signed in Algiers in 2000 ended the conflict. But demarcation of the border has been indefinitely postponed since Ethiopia rejected a ruling in 2002 by an independent boundary commission that Badme was part of Eritrea.
Under their peace accords, both sides had agreed that the commission’s ruling would be binding. Eritrea’s government accepts the ruling in full and insists Ethiopia follow suit.