Border demarcation to begin in October

Demarcation of the contested border between Ethiopia and Eritrea is to start in October, the Boundary Commission said on Thursday. Construction of border pillars would begin, as expected, in the east of both countries and the entire 1,000 km border would be completed by June 2004, the commission said. The announcement comes after two separate delays to demarcation, which was originally scheduled to start in May, and then put back to July. But the Hague-based commission acknowledged that the process could face further delays. "This schedule is dependent on the various critical factors being met on time to enable key milestones to be achieved as scheduled," it said. Ethiopia is contesting elements of the independent Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) ruling, announced on 13 April last year, such as the decision to place the now symbolic town of Badme in Eritrea. The EEBC was formed after the December 2000 peace deal to finally resolve the border issue between both countries. The peace agreement followed a bloody two and a half year war which flared up in the frontier town of Badme and claimed tens of thousands of lives.