Djibouti: Djibouti says Eritrean soldiers occupy disputed area
Djibouti has lodged a formal complaint with the African Union accusing soldiers from neighboring Eritrea of occupying a contested mountainous area after Qatari peacekeepers left the region this week, an official said.
The move threatens to renew a territorial dispute between the two East African nations that Qatar, now caught up in a diplomatic clash with other Arab nations, has helped to mediate.
“The Eritrean troops occupied the Dumeira Mountain immediately after Qatar’s peacekeepers left,” Djibouti’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Mohammed Idriss Farah, told The Associated Press. “Sometimes the Eritrean troops go to the top of the mountain and return on the other side. What makes this one different is that they moved in right after the peacekeepers left.”
The ambassador said his government was waiting for military confirmation on whether Eritrean forces still controlled the contested area.