SUDAN-ERITREA : ERITREAN TROOPS KILLED
KHARTOUM, March 5 (AFP) - Fourteen Eritrean soldiers were found dea
in western Eritrea, a member of the opposition Islamic Jihad movement
in the Horn of Africa nation said, a Khartoum daily reported
Wednesday.
The Eritrean opposition member, who was not named, denied a
government claim that the soldiers were killed by his movement, and
said that "the massacre was committed by the (Eritrean) security
services," the Akhbar al-Youm daily reported.
It also quoted what it described as a "responsible" source in the
opposition Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) as saying that the Eritrean
defence minister, Sebhat Ephrem, and top army commanders had recently
paid "a surprise visit" to Tasanay town, a few kilometres (miles) away
from the border with Sudan to raise the morale of the troops, who were
allegedly "opposed to fighting Sudan".
Eritrean troops were currently massing in border positions facing
Sudanese towns, the paper said.
Khartoum accuses Eritrea, as well as Ethiopia, of supporting the
armed Sudanese opposition to the military junts and deploying troops
in Sudan, a charge both countries deny. Eritrea has cut diplomatic
ties with Sudan, alleging destabilisation
In another development, Akhbar al-Youm reported that an Eritrean
presidential adviser visiting Sudan was optimistic that he will
succeed in mediation efforts.
The envoy, Mohamed Abul Gassim Haj Hamad, is a Sudanese author who
obtained Eritrean nationality after the Eritrean People's Liberation
Front (EPLF) led by Isaias Afeworki came to power in 1991.
He had been serving with the EPLF - now the People's Front for
Democracy and Justice - since 1966 and was its information officer in
Damascus, Syria, before the party took power in Eritrea.
Hamad told the Sudanese paper that a recent statement from Afeworki
that he had nothing to do with hamad's mediation initiative was
"misunderstood".
The Eritrean leader told MBC television that Hamad was "a friend to
the Eritrean people and to me personally and is a Sudanese nationalist
who aspires for developed ties between Sudan and Eritrea."
"The consultations we have as friends from time to time are not in any
way related to mediation between Asmara and Khartoum," Afeworki told
the television.
Hamad said in the newspaper interview that this statement should not
be taken as an opposition to his initiative by Afeworki, with whom he
said he has been connected for over 30 years.
"If my brother Afeworki was opposed to my initiative he could have
prevented me from paying this visit to Khartoum and I would have
complied," Hamad said, adding that he would not act "without his
approval or at least his non-objection."
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