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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Handover of bodies "step towards peace" - UN

ADDIS ABABA, 28 July 2003 (IRIN) - The UN has refused to let a row over 220 soldiers killed in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea overshadow the ceremony to repatriate their bodies.

The UN peacekeeping Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said that the “simple and dignified” military ceremony, which took place on Friday, was a step towards ensuring lasting peace for
the two countries.

“They did their duty and they made the soldier's ultimate sacrifice,” the UN’s force commander Major General Robert Gordon told the ceremony, which took place at the border town of Bure in the eastern sector.

“May they now, at last, rest in peace,” he added.

Ethiopia agreed to bury the remains of the dead soldiers on "humanitarian" grounds, but claimed on Friday that they were actually Eritrean. Asmara is adamant that the bodies are Ethiopian, and accused Addis Ababa of wanting to "hide its losses and casualties".

UNMEE has also stated that three Ethiopian military officials identified most of the bodies - which have lain on the battlefield where they fell for three years - as Ethiopian.

The UN secretary-general's special representative, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, told officials at the ceremony that the handover had “opened a window of opportunity” for both countries.

“The Ethiopian-Eritrean peace must now flower so that we need never gather again in a place such as this,” he stated.

The soldiers are among an estimated 70,000 people killed during the bitter 1998-2000 border war between the two countries. The bodies were only discovered in May 2003 inside the 25-km wide Temporary Security Zone which separates both nations.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

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