Twelve Ethiopian soldiers defect to Eritrea

ASMARA, Feb 5 (AFP) — A dozen Ethiopian soldiers this week defected to their former enemy, neighouring Eritrea, Asmara claimed Thursday, three days after Ethiopia’s state news agency made a parallel claim about three Eritrean soldiers.

“Twelve more TPLF soldiers defected this week and arrived in Eritrea opposing the TPLF regime’s anti-peace policy,” according to the Eritrean information ministry’s website.

TPLF stands for the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, the dominant force in Ethiopia’s coalition government.

The frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been closed since a fierce 1998-2000 border war.

A peace process has come unstuck over a row about the exact path of the border and the international community is growing increasingly alarmed about the growing tension between the Horn of Africa neighbours.

This tension prompted UN chief Kofi Annan to appoint a special envoy to the two coutries late last month.
The official Eritrean website published the names and military details of all 12 Ethiopian soldiers.

“The defectors indicated that the number of Ethiopian soldiers deserting the army keeps on increasing due to the regimes war-mongering policy,” the ministry said.

International pressure on the two countries has focussed on convincing Ethiopia to drop its rejection of the border ruling issued in 2002 by a neutral commission; on persuading Eritrea to agree to open dialogue; and on encouraging both countries to refrain from issuing inflammatory statements.

On Monday, the Ethiopian News Agency said that three Eritrean soldiers and two civilians had defected to Ethiopia, bringing the number of such defections over the last five months to 28.