Eritrea said yesterday that Ethiopia had unleashed an "allout attack" along the southern front close to Eritrea's Red Sea port of Assab, marking a new escalation in their two-year border war.
Ethiopia confirmed there was heavy fighting near Assab but insisted it was simply responding to Eritrean attacks and denied launching an assault for control of the port.
Sporadic fighting began last Saturday on the burning hot plain of volcanic ash, where soaring daytime temperatures restrict the two armies to night combat.
After several failed efforts by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to broker a ceasefire, the border conflict was reignited last month by a punishing Ethiopian offensive which saw its army march deep inside western Eritrea. Eritrea withdrew from all contested territory along the 1,000km border and pulled back troops from what it said was sovereign Eritrean territory at the Assab front in the hope of prompting a ceasefire. But the Ethiopian army responded by moving its troops into the vacated territory, pushing the southern frontline to 37 km west of Assab port.
Eritrea's Foreign Ministry said three Ethiopian divisions, or more than 20,000 men, were employed in the latest battle.
Ethiopia again denied yesterday that it had territorial ambitions on the Assab front and claimed it was only fighting there because its forces came under heavy fire.
"The Eritreans have been provoking us. Whenever they attack, we will respond," government spokeswoman Ms Selome Taddesse said. Eritrea has accused Ethiopia of launching a "war of invasion" with the aim of winning back Assab, its second largest port behind Massawa farther to the north.
But Ethiopia insists it has moved deep inside Eritrean territory merely because it wants to ensure its "aggressive" smaller neighbour no longer poses a military threat.
A senior Ethiopian army officer yesterday gave an assessment of casualties and damage inflicted on its neighbour. He said more than 60 per cent of Eritrea's army had been destroyed in nearly a month of heavy fighting.
"I know that we have destroyed more than 60 per cent of their army," Col Seyoum Abrha, a member of the Ethiopian operational staff, said. He declined to give Ethiopian casualty figures.
Military analysts say tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting, and estimate more than 100,000 troops have died in the war. Col Seyoum said at the start of the war Eritrea had 24 infantry divisions of up to 5,000 men each and three artillery divisions.
Fifteen of the infantry divisions had been destroyed since May 12th while the fighting capacity of the remaining ones had been reduced by about 50 per cent, he said.
He said most of the remaining Eritrean soldiers were young, of between 17 and 21 years of age.
Meanwhile, on the humanitarian front, the UN refugee agency said nearly 73,000 Eritreans had fled to Sudan to escape the war but the flow of refugees had eased in recent days.
Spokesman Mr Ron Redmond of the UNHCR said small numbers of refugees had begun trickling back into Eritrea from Sudan, but the continuing conflict meant the Geneva-based agency could not start large-scale repatriation yet, as requested by Eritrea.
The United Nations says more than 750,000 Eritreans out of a population of less than four million have been displaced by fighting, the majority from the Gash Barka region which traditionally produces a surplus of grain to be distributed in the arid northern areas.
Eritrea said last night that it had accepted ceasefire proposals from the Organisation of African Unity to end the war, as the 11th day of talks in Algiers ended. Ethiopia is expected to respond by noon today.