SHILALO, Eritrea — U.N. peacekeeping troops took up positions along the disputed Ethiopia-Eritrea border Thursday, after Ethiopian troops withdrew from territory they captured during a 2 1/2-year war.
The last 1,200 Ethiopian troops drove their tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers out of this semi-arid border town on Wednesday, clearing a 16-mile-wide buffer zone for U.N. troops to occupy.
Brig. Gen. Teferra Mamo, the commander of Ethiopian forces in western Eritrea, said his troops were redeploying to northwestern Ethiopia.
Shilalo, about 16 miles inside Eritrea, had served as the Ethiopian command post for the western sector of the border war.
The war broke out in May 1998, when Eritrean troops took control of territory claimed by Ethiopia. Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but the border was never properly demarcated.
Tens of thousands of troops are believed to have died in recent fighting, and the war cost the impoverished nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea hundreds of millions of dollars before a peace agreement was reached last year.
In all, 4,200 peacekeepers from more than two dozen countries will be stationed along the disputed border.
The pullout of Ethiopian troops also went smoothly in other sectors of the 625-mile-long border, government and U.N. officials said.
Maj. Roger Barrett, commander of 250 U.N. peacekeepers from the Netherlands and Canada, said the Ethiopian withdrawal from the central sector near Senafe was orderly and carried out ahead of schedule. He added that the presence of 90,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean troops within a short distance of each other along the central portion of the border had made it the most sensitive sector.
The United Nations in Eritrea issued an appeal Thursday for $157.5 million to meet the needs of 1.76 million Eritreans affected by war and drought this year. The appeal brings together the aid requirements of nine U.N. agencies providing food, shelter, health care, repatriation, education and other basic needs and services.
"Eritrea will continue to require large-scale food assistance because of the combined effects of the disruption to agriculture last year and the continuing drought," said Simon Nhongo, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Eritrea. "With the significant progress towards peace that we have witnessed, we hope to promote greater self-reliance and create the conditions for rehabilitation, reconstruction and recovery."