Confrontations escalated between Eritrea, Ethiopia
Eritrea-Ethiopia, Politics, 2/8/1999

The UN secretary general's special envoy, Muhammad Sahnoun, left Addis Ababa on Sunday for Nairobi and then New York in order to acquaint Secretary General Kofi Annan with the atmosphere of the mediation he is making between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Sahnoun's mediation, however, coincided with the resumption of battles between the two sides on Saturday at the border between the two countries.

Since last Thursday, Sahnoun held several meetings with Ethiopian officials after he had held similar meetings in Asmara. Sahnoun is expected to meet with the secretary general of the Organization of African Unity, Salim Ahmad Salim, upon his arrival in Nairobi from Ouagadougou.

Diplomatic sources in Addis Ababa said that Sahnoun has the feeling that Asmara will agree the peace plan proposed by the OAU. Ethiopia approved the plan which calls for the withdrawal of Eritrea's troops to their previous positions before the eruption of the conflict on May 6, 1998.

On Saturday, Annan called for an immediate halt to battles between the two sides in order to give the efforts exerted by the international community a chance to establish peace in the region. Meanwhile, the US embassy in the Ethiopian capital announced that it encourages US citizens in the two countries to leave.

Eritrea's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that the Ethiopian Army started a second attack against Eritrea on Sunday morning despite the heavy casualties it suffered from its first attack on Saturday, during which two Ethiopian contingents were destroyed and another two were expelled from the battlefield.

In a statement sent to ArabicNews.com on Sunday, the Eritrean Foreign Ministry said that "The Ethiopian regime had used helicopter gunships in the attack in the hope of reversing the disastrous defeats that it had sustained on Saturday in which two brigades were completely routed and another two brigades severely battered."

Eritrea also accused the Ethiopian troops on Sunday of launching a second series of attacks on Badmi front in the border area between the two countries. Fighting resumed between the two sides on Saturday amid exchanging of accusations on who shot the first bullet.

The Eritrean Foreign Ministry said that "the Ethiopian large-scale offensive launched today along two axis, the Mereb-Setit and the Alitena-Mereb fronts respectively, is faltering with the regime's forces suffering huge losses.

1. On the Mereb-Setit front, the TPLF has enlisted foreign mercenaries for the helicopter gunships and fighter aircraft that it has employed in violation of the moratorium on air strikes. The regime has resorted to air-support because it has suffered huge losses in the ground attacks that it launched on Saturday and Sunday. At press time, fighting in the Mereb-Setit front has subsided although intermittent shelling continued from afar.

2. Pitched fighting continued to rage at press time on the Alitena-Mereb front. Here again, attacking Ethiopian forces could not move an inch towards Eritrean fixed positions."

On Saturday, Eritrea's transport minister Saleh Kekya called upon Yemen to mediate in order to end the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which started as of May 1998.

In a press conference he held at the headquarters of the Eritrean embassy in Sanaa, Kekya said, "Yemen is a friend for both Eritrea and Ethiopia and it can play an important role in this respect."

The Eritrean minister indicated that Sanaa in earlier times had made intensive mediations to defuse tensions between the two countries.

Eritrea's Minister left Yemen after he handed over a message from Eritrean President Assiyas Afworki to his Yemeni counterpart, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The armed conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia has been escalated since last Saturday and the two sides exchanged accusations concerning attacks on northwestern Ethiopia and southwestern Eritrea.

Previous Stories:
  Confrontation continues between Ethiopia and Eritrea   (2/6/1999)
  Ethiopia, Eritrea exchange fire   (2/5/1999)
  Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of mobilizing its forces on the borders   (2/4/1999)
  Eritrea commits to political solution for its crisis with Ethiopia   (2/3/1999)

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