UN: Peacekeepers Plan To Leave Eritrea
Guardian Unlimited, UK - February 9, 2008
In an unusual move, the United Nations is being forced to prepare an imminent pullout from Eritrea and plans to relocate all its peacekeeping troops there across the border in Ethiopia, senior U.N. officials and diplomats told The Associated Press on Friday.
Because of restrictions imposed by the Eritrean government, U.N. personnel are down to their last remaining emergency reserves of diesel fuel to power generators, vehicles and other equipment for the 7 1/2-year-old peacekeeping operation.
At last count, that operation had about 1,500 troops and 200 military observers, along with several hundred civilians and dozens of volunteers based out of Asmara, Eritrea and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"We're basically going to have to move our troops out at some point, because we're not getting any more fuel," a U.N. diplomat said. "We would relocate to Ethiopia. It would not be the end of the mission, we would just not be present in Eritrea" ...