UN says Ethiopian troops breached de-militarized zone inside Eritrea
Nov 24, 2005 (ASMARA) — The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said Thursday that a small group of Ethiopian soldiers had breached a de-militarized buffer zone inside Eritrea amid soaring border tensions.
A day after the UN Security Council threatened to slap sanctions on both Addis Ababa and Asmara if either resumes hostilities in the long-running dispute, UNMEE said the Ethiopian troops had been in the zone for five days.
“There was an occupation,” UNMEE spokeswoman Gail Bindley-Taylor-Sainte said of the incursion which violates the 2000 peace deal that ended a bloody two-year border war between the two nations.
“They were there on Saturday and left Wednesday,” she told reporters at a news conference here. “There were two soldiers, part of a group of twenty. (They) were asked to move and they moved.”
She declined to give specifics about the group but said it had entered the 25-kilometer (15-mile) wide Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) in Eritrean territory at a peak in the eastern sector of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) border.
However, she said Ethiopia had expressed concern that UN peacekeepers charged with monitoring the zone had abandoned an observation post in the area due to restrictions imposed on UNMEE air and ground patrols by Asmara.
“The Ethiopians said they were concerned we had left the area,” said Sainte, adding that in response, UNMEE had temporarily re-staffed the post in question.
The mission has been forced to abandon nearly half of its 40 observation posts along the border since Eritrea banned UNMEE helicopter flights and limited some of its ground operations last month.
The restrictions were imposed in an apparent bid to press the world body to demand that Ethiopia accept a 2002 border demarcation, emanating from the peace deal, that Addis Ababa has thus far rejected despite its binding nature.
In recent months Eritrea has stepped up saber-rattling rhetoric, warning that it was prepared to use force defend its sovereignty if Ethiopia continues to reject the border ruling.
Ethiopia says it wants revisions to the demarcation, which awards the flashpoint border town of Badme to Eritrea, so families are not split between the arch-rival nations.
In addition to threatening economic and diplomatic sanctions on both countries should conflict resume, the Security Council on Wednesday warned Eritrea of punitive action if it does not lift the restrictions on UNMEE.
It further calls on Ethiopia to accept “fully and without further delay” the border demarcation.
“We hope this new resolution will make a difference,” Sainte said, adding that UNMEE was hopeful progress could be made at a Friday meeting in Nairobi of UN, Ethiopian and Eritrean military officers.
The UN has reported troop movements on both sides of the border which it says is “tense and potentially volatile” and this week ordered the families of all its staff in Eritrea to leave the country for security reasons.
Wednesday’s Security Council resolution also demands that the two countries reduce their troop levels to those of December 16, 2004 and complete the redeployment within 30 days “to prevent aggravation of the situation.”
(AFP/ST)