Eritrea claims Ethiopia destroying agricultural zone in west

Tessenai, western Eritrea, was recaptured from Ethiopian troops on Monday after a day of battle, an Eritrean Foreign Ministry statement claimed on Tuesday. It said Tessenai, near the Sudan border, had been under Ethiopian control for 10 days despite claims by the Ethiopian government that it had withdrawn its troops from western Eritrea. Ethiopian troops had not
withdrawn but instead had proceeded to "fan out to loot and destroy satellite towns and villages in the area" said the Eritrean statement. The cotton plantation site of Ali Gidir, within eight kilometres of Tessenai, had been vandalized and all new processing machinery "detonated" by the Ethiopian army, said the statement. The Eritrean government said Ethiopia's aim was to prevent the return of some 40,000 displaced civilians from returning to the area in order to "disrupt agricultural
production during the critical month of June when the rains are due". Over 60 percent of Eritrea's agricultural produce comes from the western part of the country, said the statement.