Joint Ethiopia-Sudan border force kills 50 militia

ADDIS ABABA, July 29 (Reuters) – A joint Ethiopia-Sudan military force killed 50 militia and captured 80 operating along their common border last week, the Ethiopian Defence Ministry said on Thursday, also accusing Eritrea of training the men.

A statement quoting Brigadier General Seyoum Hagos, the Deputy Commander of the Ethiopian force operating along the border, said Sudan had since then handed over four armed militia who had entered their country.

“The armed gang who had been trained by Eritrea and sent to the common Ethiopia-Sudan border had a mission to create a wedge between the two neighbours,” Seyoum was quoted as saying.

“It was also aimed at disrupting joint development projects which are in full progress along the Ethiopia-Sudan border.”

There was no immediate comment from Eritrea, which fought a 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia over the small Ethiopian-run border town of Badme. An Algiers agreement in 2000 ended the conflict, in which 70,000 people were killed.

Relations worsened again after Addis Ababa rejected the ruling on where their common border should lie, in which Badme was adjudged part of Eritrea. Under the peace accord both sides had agreed the commission’s ruling would be binding.

Sudan’s relations with Eritrea worsened after its capital Asmara became the headquarters of Sudanese opposition groups from the western Sudan region of Darfur, a region where the United Nations says the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

Ethiopia and Sudan have built a major highway connecting land-locked Ethiopia’s northern town of Metema with Port Sudan through Sudan’s Gedarif town.

Seyoum said force commanders of the two countries were holding periodic meetings to review security along their common 1,000-km (600-mile) border.