UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A standoff between Eritrea and the United Nations escalated on Friday after the Eritreans cut off food supplies to U.N. troops on their border and prevented the soldiers from withdrawing to Ethiopia.
U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said only around half a dozenU.N. vehicles had been permitted to cross into Ethiopia, U.N.personnel had been threatened at gunpoint and the Eritreancompany providing food to the peacekeepers told the UnitedNations it could no longer do so.
"Not more than six vehicles have been allowed by theEritreans to cross into Ethiopia," she said, adding thatpeacekeepers trapped on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopiahad only had a few days of emergency food rations.
She said the U.N. Security Council had been informed aboutthe situation. The council's current president, PanamanianAmbassador Ricardo Alberto Arias, said the body would discussthe issue later on Friday.
The 1,700-strong U.N. mission started work in 2000, at theend of a two-year war between the two Horn of Africa neighboursthat killed an estimated 70,000 people. They have beenstationed in a 15.5-mile (25-km) buffer zone inside Eritrea,which has said it no longer wants U.N. troops in the country.
The two countries insist they will not start another war,but both have moved tens of thousands of troops to the borderbecause of a dispute over their 620-mile (1,000 km) border.U.N. officials have said their peacekeepers were reluctant toleave because they feared it could spark a new conflict.
"An emergency troop contributors' meeting is being calledin the next few hours and the Eritrean authorities are beingdemarched also today at the highest level," Okabe said.
A demarche is an official diplomatic protest.
(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau, Editing by Vicki Allen)
