UN concerned by heavy military presence on Ethiopia-Eritrea border
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 17 (AFP) — The United Nations said Thursday it was worried by the heavy military presence along the disputed Ethiopian-Eritrean border despite a current relative calm and urged the rivals to exercise restraint.
“There is a concern because there is a large number of troops at the border,” Gail Bindley-Taylor Saint, a spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), told reporters here in a video-conference call from Asmara.
“We have called on both sides for restraint, bearing in mind there could be a potential for problems,” she said. “We are monitoring the situation very closely but at the moment the situation remains stable.”
Her comments came amid rising international concern about a military build-up on the border, over which the two countries fought a bloody two-year war.
The number of soldiers from Ethiopia at the border has risen to about 60,000, up sharply from about 35,000 in January, according to a diplomat in Addis Ababa who requested anonymity.
On Tuesday, the European Union expressed similar fears about potential for the continued military presence along the frontier to increase tensions, given the fact that a final border demarcation remains unresolved.
Last month, UNMEE carried out a border inspection and concluded the military deployments there were defensive in nature and not a preparation for war.
UNMEE troops, deployed in the wake of the 1998-2000 war fought over the border, are stationed in a 25-kilometer-wide (15-mile) buffer corridor that hugs the length of the 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) border between the two states.
The force has been downsized in recent weeks to 3,365 troops from nearly 4,000 and Saint said any build-up of forces near the Temporary Security Zome (TSZ) was an issue of concern for the UN mission.
“A large number of troops on both side of the boundary is a concern to UNMEE because of its potential to threaten the stabilitity of the TSZ,” she said.
Although the situation remains relatively stable on the border, Saint said the Ethiopian army had informed UNMEE that it had killed two armed men and captured five others near the northern Ethiopian town of Manda on February 1.
However, she stressed that UNMEE had not been able to determine whether the captured gunmen, who appeared to be soldiers, were Eritreans and noted that Asmara had denied they were citizens of Eritrea or members of its armed forces.