UNITED NATIONS, May 31 (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution reducing the peacekeeping force along the contested Eritrea-Ethiopia border.
The panel of 15 Wednesday night decided to decrease the number of troops in the two Horn of Africa nations from a total of about 3,370 to 2,300. The surplus troops may be redeployed to Ivory Coast, the once-successful pride of West Africa now engulfed in a conflict pitting north against south.
The U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea was reduced because Eritrea banned not only peacekeepers from patrolling its side of the not-fully-demarcated border, but also helicopter flights from monitoring posts. It meant wounded or injured peacekeepers had to be taken on lengthy and torturous land routes to get medical aid.
Both countries had agreed to accept the delimitation and demarcation determinations of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission as final and binding.
But Ethiopia refused to accept that the dusty border town of Badme was awarded to Eritrea and Eritrea, frustrated by the lack of cooperation, began putting pressure on the United Nations in a bid to get control of the contested area.
In the same resolution, the Security Council also extended UNMEE's mandate, but for only another four months, as opposed to the usual six-month extension.
It also called on both parties to the 2000 Algiers peace accord officially ending the years of war between the two nations to honor that accord and the decision of the EEBC.
