ERITREA: The last Irish UN troops to serve in Eritrea will take up their positions shortly. Marie O'Halloran reports on the mission and talks to soldiers
When some 110 Irish soldiers leave Eritrea in east Africa tomorrow, most will not be sorry to go home. By next week, all 221 of the United Nations No. 2 Irish Guard and Admin Component will be back in Ireland.
The UN peacekeepers have finished their six months tour of duty with UNMEE, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. They have also been part of the Irish Defence Forces' first deployment in Africa since the Congo mission of the 1960s.
It has been a new type of UN venture for the Irish - different, exotic and in a politically intriguing and tense region. But they are happy to go home because they were bored.
It is not a word the Defence Forces or its soldiers like to use. They talk instead of tedious or mundane exercises. But basically, there has not been enough activity for the Irish troops, who are based in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
The contingent's replacement, the No. 3 Irish Guard - will serve the third and final six months of the Irish presence with UNMEE. The international force of 4,200 soldiers, mainly Jordanian, Kenyan and Indian troops, is in place in a 25-kilometre wide buffer zone along the 1,000 km border, between the two African countries.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a bitter and devastating two-year border war, sparked by a dispute over a small village and townland, Badme.
Tens of thousands of people died until a ceasefire was agreed in 2000. That ceasefire is holding, and an international boundary commission will demarcate the border, an exercise that is now expected to be completed by the end of next year.
However, the Irish troops are not deployed at the TSZ, the temporary security zone. Instead, they provide security for the UN headquarters in Asmara and the new UN force commander, the Scottish Maj Gen Robert Gordon, great-grandson of the renowned 19th century general, Gordon of Khartoum.
There are 24-hour patrols around the UN headquarters, the "green building" and at the Irish camp of pre-fabs, known as Camp de h-Íde, after Ireland's first president, Douglas Hyde.
The Irish guard also provides the security escort and logistics for patrols travelling with supplies for the UN soldiers and military observers at the TSZ.
These convoys are usually once weekly for up to five days, sometimes longer. And there are always plenty of volunteers for one of the 20 Irish places on those patrols.
But the outgoing commander of the Irish Guard, Lt Col David Prendergast, rejects out of hand any suggestion that it is a holiday camp.
"It is not a holiday camp by any means," he insists. It is a major task in the management of personnel, and it is difficult for the soldiers because they are away from home.
Plus, "the job they are doing is mundane".
It has been a difficult management task because of the camp being in a town, rather than outside it. The soldiers socialise in the bars and hotels of Asmara. There is one recorded incident between four Irish soldiers and local Eritrean militia, in an Asmara bar, which is under investigation.
The soldiers have also undergone a "serious education programme" about HIV/Aids in Eritrea and Africa, according to Lt Col Prendergast.
This included very graphic demonstrations about the use of male and female condoms, which have been supplied and are available to all Irish soldiers in Eritrea. The troops "are very aware of the situation", he says.
The No. 2 Guard was unique for a number of reasons. It had probably the largest number of troops on their first overseas mission, 67, and the largest number of women - 17.
Among those is Pte Sharon Foley, who drives one of the six MOWAG armoured personnel carriers. Five years in the Army, she went to Eritrea "for the money and the experience. I can always say I was in Africa for six months". Soldiers earn about €55 extra a day for peacekeeping duty. The private, from Dungarvan, Co Waterford, would be one of two APC drivers on any given patrol. They are the lead and rear vehicle of the convoy and will set off any landmines on the tracks the patrols often use, "but the soldiers are safe".
Eritrea is littered with mines, including an estimated four million along the border. The patrols, which are completely self-sufficient with food, water and supplies for up to 10 days, sometimes also cross the border into Ethiopia.
The Irish guard also has responsibility for the recovery of vehicles blown up by landmine explosions. Landmines, in fact, are the biggest threat to UNMEE troops.
Since January 2001, an estimated 64 people have been killed and 163 injured by landmines and unexploded shells, according to the latest figures from the UN's Mine Action Co-ordination Centre.
The 25 km buffer zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea is virtually untouched because of landmines and is lush, verdant and a haven for birdlife. Ditches dug by soldiers on both sides of the war, criss-cross the landscape and in some areas, dead soldiers were left unburied, their bones visible, because of their location among unexploded mines.
Cpl Sinead Chadwick, marked four years in the Army while in Eritrea. From Passage West in Cork, she has charge of seven other soldiers. And do the men have "difficulty" with women in command? "No problems, and if they do we sort them out," she says.
The risk level for UN soldiers is low. They are not "operationally under threat", but the population, to a greater or lesser extent, has no great affection for the peacekeepers.
Eritrea, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year-war, looks at the UN, as one local man described it, as "our new occupiers", even though the Government invited the UN.
And Eritrea is very different from missions like Lebanon, where the troops were "in the field", and where there was always something going on. What makes Eritrea such a contrast is probably the mission's success with a continuing ceasefire.