Ethiopia rejects Eritrean mine information

Ethiopia has refused to accept minefield maps from Eritrea claiming they are fake, the United Nations said on Friday.

The maps show mines laid in Ethiopian territory by Eritrean forces during the countries' two-year border war which flared up in May 1998.

Phil Lewis, who heads the mine action team of the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE), said in his judgement the maps – which show over 100 minefields - are genuine.

Eritrea handed its records over to UNMEE about 15 months ago, but said the UN should hang on to them until Ethiopia made its mine information available. Addis Ababa handed over its minefield information to UNMEE a week before the crucial border ruling announcement in The Hague on 13 April.

“The reason given to us by the Ethiopian authorities as to why they refused the records...is that they thought they were fake," Lewis told a press conference.

“They thought that the records had been put together recently and they didn’t believe the information contained therein was accurate."

“There is no cause to think that this is recent information that has been fabricated," he added. "We have had these exact records for 15 months.”

“The reason they were not handed over 15 months ago is that Eritrea refused to give its concurrence...until the Ethiopian minefield records had been handed to the MACC [UN's Mine Action Coordination Centre], and that only occurred a few weeks ago," Lewis said.

He said it was his task now to try and convince the Ethiopian authorities that "we believe these records are authentic". He said Ethiopia should at least take the records, and conduct its own checks to determine their authenticity.

“The Eritrean authorities accepted our professional judgement that the Ethiopian records were accurate, were useful for humanitarian demining, and on that basis and on our recommendation they then released the information to the Ethiopians,” Lewis said.