The United Nations disclosed Thursday that some 20 Ethiopian troops last week violated the buffer zone along the disputed border with Eritrea to which forces from both sides are prohibited and stayed there for four days, reported Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa). A patrol from the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) discovered the 20 Ethiopian troops in the Bure-Bada border area in Sector East, said Gail Sainte, mission spokesperson. They had infiltrated through the buffer zone. During the weekly press briefing connecting reporters in Asmara and Addis Ababa via video, she stated that the Ethiopian troops complied with UNMEE demands and vacated Wednesday morning the hilly locality "they had briefly occupied." Sainte said the military situation in the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea is still "tense and potentially volatile," as it had been for the last two months with both sides engaged in troop movements on their respective sides of the border. The U.N. Security Council has called on both countries to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from any threat of the use of force. --SP 2318 Local Time 2018 GMT
