UN peacekeepers in Ethiopia and Eritrea – majority of them Kenyans – could be withdrawn because the situation has become dangerous.
Secretary-general Kofi Annan has said that the situation has reached a dangerous stalemate leading to the possibility of withdrawing the force known as the UN Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee).
He was quoted in the UN Gazeti published at the UN offices in Nairobi as telling the UN Security Council that the present position of the mission was untenable.
Kenya has 335 soldiers playing a crucial role in the peace process as chief deminers and taking charge of logistics.
The mission was sent to keep a five-year truce between the two countries. Ethiopia has failed to comply with a border demarcation decision while Eritrea is restricting the UN mission working in the two Horn of Africa countries.
After a special investigation last month, the Government said that rising tension between the two states had made it difficult for the Kenyan troops to do their work, especially in Eritrea. Tension heightened after Eritrea banned UN helicopter flights in its airspace.
A report compiled by Mr Billy Onyonyi of the Kenyan embassy in Cairo, which is also responsible for the two countries, and Brigadier Abraham Wambugu, the Unmee deputy force commander, said the tension had made it difficult for the troops to survey the buffer zone also known as the temporary security zone.
Eritrea has also restricted the movement of vehicles and foot patrols by UN soldiers, reducing the Unmee's performance by 30 per cent.
"As a result of the restrictions imposed on Unmee," Mr Annan said, "the present position of the mission is becoming increasingly untenable."
He said the UN could withdraw its soldiers from Asmara in Eritrea to Addis Ababa and maintain only a few to monitor the peace process and "unblock the dangerous stalemate". Another option includes transforming the force into an observer mission or a political liaison mission.
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