DATE=6/23/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=ERITREA / TESSENEY (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263682
BYLINE=CAROL PINEAU
DATELINE=TESSENEY, ERITREA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a cease-fire
agreement this past Sunday to halt their two-year
border war. But even as the two countries were signing
the agreement, shops, schools, homes and factories
were being looted and burned in one occupied Eritrean
town. Carol Pineau has the report.
TEXT: Tesseney -- an important Eritrean trading town
along the border with Sudan -- is almost completely
destroyed. What was not looted has been burned.
The town changed hands several times during the most
recent flare-up of the border war between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. Still, two weeks ago, when reporters and
international observers visited the area, they said
Tesseney had suffered only minimal damage in the
fighting.
But people in the town say that even as the cease-fire
agreement was being signed Sunday, occupying Ethiopian
troops looted and burned homes, schools, shops and
other buildings in the town.
Today, Tesseney's almost completed 40-million-dollar
state-of-the-art cotton gin lies in ruins. Military
experts say explosives were set off inside the high-
tech machinery.
The town's Roman Catholic mission school has been
burned. Warehouses filled with grain are now enormous
piles of ash.
A spokesman for the U-N refugee agency, Peter Kessler,
says the destruction of Tesseney will worsen Eritrea's
humanitarian problems.
/// KESSLER ACT ONE ///
Tesseney is really a shattered town. The
hospital, public facilities like schools, other
public buildings have been destroyed. What is
of most concern is some of the outlying areas,
some of the marketplaces, and some of the
residential areas have also been hit by burning
and looting. That will make it very difficult
for many people to find a home and to have a
place to live once they return.
/// END ACT ///
Ethiopia strongly denies that its army looted and
burned the town. In an official statement, the
government in Addis Ababa accused Eritrea of making
the charges against Ethiopia in an attempt to divert
attention away from its military defeat.
Meanwhile, Tesseney's people who fled during the
fighting are beginning to return. U-N refugee agency
spokesman Peter Kessler says it is important for them
to return quickly before the rainy season.
/// KESSLER ACT TWO ///
/// OPT /// It's vital that people get back
as soon as possible because the rains are going
to start, really any day now. So we are really
in a race against time. /// END OPT ///
The population has to go back to get their seeds
in the ground, plow their fields, to sow their
crops, but really they don't have any places to
go to. They don't have a hospital, they don't
have other services. So, at the same time while
it's vital that people go back, while it is
vital that people get their harvest prepared,
they need aid urgently.
/// END ACT ///
International organizations estimate nearly one-
million Eritreans were displaced by the past six weeks
of fighting. (Signed)
NEB/CP/JWH/KL
23-Jun-2000 08:08 AM EDT (23-Jun-2000 1208 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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