October 14, 1998

Dear Netters:

The Eritrean government is claiming that Ethiopia invaded Eritrea and captured Badime sometime before May 1998. The OAU has already investigated the issue and determined that Badime was under Ethiopian administration. However, the Eritreans are still trying to persuade the international community that Ethiopia invaded Badime (six months to one year before May 1998).

Foreign development workers who had travelled and worked in the disputed regions have already provided evidence to refute Eritrea's claim. In addition, Ethiopia has stated that it posseses documents demonstrating that the local Eritrean government in the border area had been peacefully corresponding with its Ethiopian counterpart in Badime since 1991. Documents such as these are devastating to the Eritrean case. However, until Ethiopia officially presents these to the public they cannot be taken as fact.

As I do not have access to official government documents, I have simply searched the Internet for "Badime" or "Badme." The result of this search is listed below. It is a UN document that demonstrates relief operations in Badime by Ethiopian authorities during the drought of 1994 which hit both Eritrea and Ethiopia. Apparently, the Eritreans were not interested in Badime during this time of need.

The excerpt from this document is listed below. Here is the URL for the full article: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/EUE/tigray0494.html

Conclusion

Eritrea's claims that Ethiopia invaded and captured Badime are nonsense.

-Dagmawi

EMERGENCIES UNIT FOR ETHIOPIA

Situation Report for Region 1 (Tigray)

4 - 13 April, 1994

1. INTRODUCTION

A field trip was made with the following objectives:

- To obtain an overview of the general situation of Region 1;

- To obtain the latest figures of people in need of relief food assistance, particularly in the most affected Eastern and Southern zones;

- To collect information on the various relief agencies regarding their current activities in the four zones of Region 1;

- to visit some of the woredas hardest hit by drought in the Southern zone and where there has been an almost complete failure of the Belg rains.

4.4. WESTERN ZONE

REST as the only relief agency in the Western zone, has distributed reduced food rations (10.0 kg of wheat grain or sorghum, 450 g of oil and 1.5 kg of CSB) for the month of March as follows:

 WOREDA        NUMBER OF BENEFICIARIES          
 Badime              3,782                             
 Shiraro             9,938                             
 Adi Hageray           966                             
 Adi Awala           6,644                             
 Dima                6,335                             
 Inda Selasie        1,942                             
 Adi Nebreid         2,893                             
 Tsembela              949                             

 Total number of 
beneficiaries in    
March 1994          33,449

Roughly 40 percent of the affected population (86,000 persons registered by RRB) was covered by REST's distribution.

As the situation is still deteriorating in the worst affected woredas, REST has a plan to increase the number of beneficiaries to 40,000 for the month of April.

GTZ will start an Integrated Food Security Programme in the four woredas of Adi Aro, Adi Nebreid, Adi Hageray and Adi Awala. In the first three woredas 420 MT and in the latter 140 MT of sorghum have already been stored in the woreda towns. The programme is linked to FFW activities.