Walta Information Centre
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Of the 26 Eritreans, five were wounded and captured in the June 10-11 clash. The rest, 21 conscripts, surrendered to Djibouti in the days following the military clash.
With the exception of Captain Mehari, who is an officer in the Eritrean army, the other prisoners are all Eritrean conscripts.
Meanwhile, Eritrea holds fifteen prisoners of war from the Djiboutian army and it is unclear whether these were turned over to the ICRC.
The Eritrean government had earlier offered to exchange its prisoners with those held by Djibouti and the state of Qatar had been involved in the initiative. But Djibouti refused the offer and opted to use the conventional approach with the Red Cross.
Gedab News has also learned that there are scores of Oromo and Ogaden detainees in Djibouti who escaped from their training camps in Eritrea close to the Djibouti-Eritrea border area. Eritrea hosts Ethiopian Oromo and Ogaden opposition groups.
Meanwhile, Eritrea has finally given its permission to the UN fact finding mission to visit Eritrea with one caveat: the mission has to fly directly from New York. Eritrea has indicated it will not receive any delegation if it flies from either Djibouti or any other Middle Eastern country.
Eritrea had previously rejected fact-finding visits from the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (Arab League.).
Source: Walta Information Center, Sept 03, 2008