A new conflict could break out between Eritrea and Ethiopia Woyanne, the UN says, as it prepares to withdraw its troops.
The UN gave a Wednesday deadline for Eritrea to restore fuel supplies to the peacekeepers on its side of the border, or it said they would have to withdraw.
A UN spokesman told the BBC on Thursday that UN personnel had not yet begun relocating from Eritrea though fuel supplies were still not being allowed.
Tens of thousands of people died in the two countries' 1998-2000 border war.
"Clearly the signs point towards a resumption of the conflict," UN spokesman Yves Sorokobi told the BBC.
"We know that troops are being amassed in the Temporary Security Zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia," said Mr Sorokobi, UN chief Ban Ki-moon's spokesman.
"We know the rhetoric has been warlike and increasingly so. All this bodes ill for peace in the region," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
'Regrettable'
But the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in the Ethiopia capital, Addis Ababa, says that senior UN officials there are convinced that neither side really wants war.
Some 1,400 UN troops and 200 military observers are in the region to monitor a peace deal signed in 2000.
Eritrea wants the international community to put pressure on Ethiopia Woyanne to withdraw from the town of Badme, which the Boundary Commission set up after the war awarded to Eritrea.
But Mr Sorokobi said the peacekeepers were not there to impose a settlement on the two sides – only to monitor them.
He said it was not possible for the peacekeepers to work without fuel.
"It is most regrettable that… peacekeepers cannot be allowed to maintain peace."
He noted the peacekeeping operations were only being hampered by the Eritreans, not the Ethiopias Woyannes.
They have had to reduce their patrols, there have been problems with supplies and communications, and they have only been able to run generators for a short time each day.
Our correspondent says that if they do pull out, it would have to be by road, since Eritrea has banned the use of UN helicopters in its airspace.
From many locations the easiest way out would be across the border into northern Ethiopia, but it is not clear whether the border would be opened to allow them to leave.
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- Eritrea cuts diesel supplies to U.N. agencies
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I don't expect war between Weyane and Shabiy, if it happens, it is a joint and intended conspiracy to mass murder the young generation from both sides.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Yigermal you think there will not be war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. That must be your dreaming but not based on reality. Many of us did not think there would be a war after 30 years of war that dragged the region in to famine and disease that left the people to live in abject poverty for generation. However, the war broke in 1998 and we all know the consequences. You are right if the war broke based on such dismal prophesy of UN several young people from both sides will be sacrificed for no reason. My question to both Ethiopians and Eritreans is what are we going to do to prevent the dismal prophesy of UN be fulfilled. There are those from both sides the region and others from outside like the previous wars that would be actively fomenting animosity. Unless the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea, work together to create an atmosphere of harmony between the two communities war is inevitable. Sadly, so far there no one is stretching hands of peace and reconciliation in the region except token gestures mainly calculated to promote selfish narrow political score. Many of us were doing nothing when was fermenting in Somalia, and now some of us barking. ‘Jib ke-hede, woosha Chohe’.
Let it be peace!
February 8th, 2008 at 3:13 pm