By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A standoff between Eritrea andthe United Nations escalated on Friday after Eritreans cut offfood supplies to U.N. peacekeepers on their border andprevented them from withdrawing to Ethiopia, a U.N. spokeswomansaid.
Spokeswoman Marie Okabe said only around half a dozen U.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 had 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 left.
She said the U.N. Security Council had been informed aboutthe situation with the U.N. force, called UNMEE. The council'scurrent president, Panamanian Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias,said the body would discuss the issue later on Friday.
"The situation of UNMEE is becoming very, very delicate,"Arias told reporters.
Officials at the Eritrean mission to the United Nationswere not immediately available for comment.
U.N. troops on the Eritrean-Ethiopian border have beenstruggling for months to deal with an Eritrean fuel blockadeand recently decided they would have to relocate to Ethiopia.
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 made clear it no longer wants them.
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) frontier.U.N. officials have said their peacekeepers were reluctant toleave because they feared it could spark a new conflict.
BORDER DISPUTE
"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.
Eritrea began cutting off fuel supplies to UNMEE in earlyDecember after an independent border commission marked theboundary by map coordinates in a ruling Eritrea accepted, butEthiopia rejected.
Asmara, which said the commission's ruling ended the borderdispute, has ignored repeated U.N. and Security Council appealsto lift the fuel blockade, forcing UNMEE to begin withdrawingto positions in Ethiopia.
Advance units of the force began moving by road todesignated relocation sites on the Ethiopian side of the borderon Monday while the main body began moving on Thursday.
Eritrea has said the peacekeepers' continued presence alongthe border was tantamount to occupation.
The U.N. Security Council renewed UNMEE's mandate for sixmonths on January 30 despite a proposal by U.N.Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for an extension of just onemonth because of the force's difficulties. Diplomats said thecouncil felt a short extension would mean submitting to"blackmail" by Eritrea.
(Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip)
(Editing by Vicki Allen)
