Four killed in mine accidents

Four people have been killed in recent mine accidents in the Eritrea-Ethiopia border region, the UN said on Thursday.

Gail Bindley-Taylor-Sainte, spokeswoman for the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE), told a weekly press briefing that three Ethiopian herdsmen were killed on the Ethiopian side of the Mereb River on 20 November. The incident, which was possibly caused by an old mine washed down the river bank, had only just been reported to UNMEE, she said.

In the second incident, an Eritrean boy was killed near the town of Tserona while playing with "old and unstable unexploded ordnance".

The spokeswoman also told the briefing there had been "no significant changes" in troop locations over the past week. Last week, UNMEE said it had monitored Eritrean troop movements towards the west of the country.

Sainte added that UNMEE was satisfied there were no Eritrean troops in the demilitarised buffer zone separating the two countries. "They have respected the TSZ [Temporary Security Zone] to date," she said.

Tension is high between the two sides, after Ethiopia rejected a border ruling by an independent boundary commission and called for dialogue to resolve the impasse. Asmara says there can be no dialogue until after border demarcation.