PREVIOUS | NEXT

Soldiers look out for approaching planes in Ethiopia
REUTERS/GEORGE MULALA

In September 2005, Eritrea warned it might re-start its war with Ethiopia after five years of peace if the United Nations fails to resolve a dispute between the two countries over the key border town of Badme.

U.N. peacekeepers monitor a buffer zone between the two countries as part of a peace deal ending a two-year border war that killed more than 70,000 people.

In October 2005, Eritrea banned U.N. helicopter flights in the border zone. The flights were used to carry supplies and peacekeepers, and to monitor the area. As a result of the ban, the U.N. had to close several bases along the border and it was only able to monitor about 45 percent of the buffer zone in October.

In early November 2005 the United Nations peacekeeping mission along the border changed its description of the situation on the ground from ‘’stable’’ to ‘’tense’’. And the African Union warned the situation could escalate into war.

Click here to read a background to the last war and the current tensions.

Food shortages: The combined effect of the border war and severe drought means an estimated 2.2 million people out of a total population of 3.8 million need food aid, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

More than one million farmers were displaced by the war and the country’s infrastructure was badly damaged. Landmines were laid in some of the most fertile and populous parts of Eritrea.

The conflict was followed by one of the region’s worst ever droughts, which has affected more than 60 percent of the population in the past four years.

People still uprooted: There are still an estimated 45,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees who have been expelled from Ethiopia, most of them living in camps and completely dependent on humanitarian aid. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 85 percent of them are women and children.

Most of the IDP camps are in or near the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone. They have severe water shortages, little or no sanitation and only half the children living in camps attend school, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Villages destroyed by the war in the border’s 25-km-wide (15-mile-wide) buffer zone, still need to be rebuilt. They lack water, transport and basic health and education services.

The IDPs cannot return home until the border issue is resolved, mines are cleared and the war-damaged infrastructure is rebuilt.

People who have returned home: Since the end of the war, one million displaced people have returned home but, according to the World Food Programme, nearly half of them are still dependent on food aid. The ongoing tensions near the border and the presence of landmines have prevented them from accessing their own and communal lands.

People still uprooted: According to the Global IDP Project, the war displaced 360,000 people in Ethiopia, most of them in the Tigray region near the Eritrean border.

OCHA estimates there are now 62,000 people still displaced in the Tigray region, most of them living in host communities.

People who have returned home: As with Eritrea, landmines and continued insecurity have prevented many returnees from using their land, leaving them dependent on food aid. According to the Global IDP Project, many are unlikely to become self-sufficient until the frontier is demarcated, their lands demined, and security ensured.

According to a July 2005 OCHA report, the lack of clean drinking water, sanitation, drugs and medical services in resettled parts of Tigray region has increased levels of disease, especially diarrhoea.

There is little information on nutrition in the region, but Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland found acute malnutrition among young children in one site. A full nutritional survey has to be carried out to confirm this finding.

Eritrean forces laid 240,000 mines and Ethiopian forces laid 150,000-200,000 mines during the border war, according to the Landmine Monitor.

Ethiopia is one of the 10 most mined countries in the world, and its northern Tigray region is one of the worst-affected in the country.

In Eritrea, landmines were laid in some of the most populated and fertile regions in the country - the Debub and Gash Barka regions. Debub is the country’s traditional breadbasket. Landmines are one of the main reasons why people cannot return home or, when they do, cannot rebuild their lives because mines cut them off from pastoral and farm land.