AFP ETHIOPIA-ERITREA BORDER (AFP-Jiji) — For two decades, little besides soldiers, refugees and rebels moved across Ethiopia and Eritrea’s closed border, but now the once-barren no man’s land teems with activity. After 20 years of bloody conflict and grim stalemate, the Ethiopia-Eritrea border is bustling once again, revitalizing frontier towns and allowing the countries’ long-estranged populations to reacquaint themselves. Once a province of Ethiopia, Eritrea voted for independence in 1993 after a bloody, decades-long struggle. The conflict continued as a cold war after Ethiopia refused to honor a U.N.-backed commission verdict demarcating the border, a policy Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed reversed in June. Flights restarted and embassies reopened shortly afterward, and in September, Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki reopened the crossing at Zalambessa, an Ethiopian town on a major route into Eritrea.

Source: Ethiopian News October 14, 2018 12:22 UTC