Ethiopia restores Padmi from Eritrea

Ethiopia announced on Sunday that it had restored Padmi, the city under dispute with Eritrea on the Western front, noting that all of Padmi has come under the control of the Ethiopian Army.

AFP quoted Ethiopian sources as saying that operation "Sunset" had completely succeeded, that around 10,000 of Eritrea's soldiers were killed, wounded or held as prisoners of war and that two MiG 29 planes and heavy Eritrean military equipment were destroyed in the renewed confrontations on the Padmi front.

Addis Ababa radio said that the Eritrean Army equipped 40,000 soldiers, around 100 artillery units and some 70 tanks in these battles, adding that the Eritrean army also drilled more than 100- KM trenches and implanted them with anti-personnel mines. The radio added that the Ethiopian defense forces had full control over the trenches and expanded their victories on the front.

In Asmara, the chairman of the presidential bureau denied in a statement to AFP that any battle had taken place between the two countries on Sunday morning.

War erupted between Ethiopia and Eritrea last May over control of Padmi region. However, later in the day, the chairman of the Eritrean presidential office asserted that the Ethiopian forces on Sunday launched a new attack against the Eritrean army on the western front of Padmi on the border between the two countries.

The Eritrean presidential office's chairman said the attack was launched along a front which spans 60 km and that it started at 11 a.m., just one day after Asmara had accepted the peace plan laid out by the Organization of African Unity.