Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of border attack

TPLF’s small-scale attack in Eritrean sovereign territory meets with failure Said Eritrea.

In a statement posted on its Web site shabait.com late on Wednesday 26 December 2007, Asmara said the relatively small-scale raid on Tuesday targeted its troops and allied militias in the South Tsorona region, inside a former buffer zone, but failed.

In continuation to its ongoing provocations against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea, the TPLF regime has unleashed a relatively small scale attack at exactly 03:00 am local time yesterday December 25 in Southern Tsorona area of the Southern region upon dispatched Eritrean militias and security forces assigned to patrol the Security Zone, but was met with utter failure, Colonel Zekarias Okbaghabir Commissioner to the Eritrean Ethiopian Peace Keeping Coordination Commission disclosed in a press statement to ERINA in the evening hours today said the statement.

The statement further noted that the TPLF regime had planted land mines during the past three days at Igri-Mekhel area in which a peace keeping vehicle was met with casualty.

The Commissioner further added that yesterday’s attack comes in continuation to the TPLF’s ongoing provocation and aggression in the Gash-Barka and Southern regions whereby it planted mines, carried out incursions, abducted nationals and burned crop fields to the ground.

Although the TPLF regime had tried to deny or disclaim responsibility for yesterday’s attack -a conduct it is well known for- it was forced to accept accountability for the attack in the final hours upon the tangible evidence acquired by the Eritrea-Ethiopia peacekeeping force after carrying out first hand surveillance in the area, the statement concluded.

The United Nations mission that monitors the border said VOA its soldiers heard shooting sounds in the Tsorona area but could not go to the site because of access restrictions. In a statement, the mission urged both sides to exercise restraint.