Djibouti accuses Eritrea of arming, training militias
AMID worsening relations, Djibouti has accused neighbouring Eritrea of arming and training militias to carry out sabotage in the tiny Horn of Africa country, and of fomenting chaos in the region.
Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki last week blamed the long-running conflict in Somalia on years of interference by Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
"Eritrea is exporting chaos. Exporting chaos has become routine in Eritrea," Reuters yesterday quoted Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef as telling reporters in Cairo after talks with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.
"They have started training militias and arming them to carry out sabotage in Djibouti, just as they support elements in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia," he added.
Djibouti, a former French colony which separates Eritrea from Somalia, hosts France's largest military base in Africa and a major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia to fight piracy.
The Red Sea state of 800,000 people is also the main route to the sea for neighbouring Ethiopia, Eritrea's arch enemy and Washington's chief regional ally.
Youssef repeated regional complaints that Eritrea was backing Somalia's al Shabaab insurgent group, which Washington says is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia. Youssef said he and Moussa also discussed developments in Somalia and Yemen.
The United States and the United Nations accuse Eritrea of supporting al Shabaab, something Asmara denies. Ethiopia also accuses Eritrea of supporting fighters in its ethnically Somali eastern Ogaden region.
The UN Security Council, the African Union and Washington have all warned Asmara against destabilising Somalia, and a move to impose sanctions has gathered speed, with Britain joining a chorus of states willing to punish Eritrea.
Moussa said he would travel to Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti next month to discuss the deteriorating situation in the region, especially Somalia and Yemen, and the crisis between Djibouti and Eritrea.
The hardline al Shabaab insurgents yesterday executed two young men in public after telling a crowd in a rebel-held port that they had confessed to spying.
"These two young men were involved in spying against our Islamic administration," Sheikh Suldan, an al Shabaab official, told reporters in Marka, 100 kilomemtres south of Mogadishu.
"We have been holding them for three months. We investigated and they confessed," he added.
Witnesses said al Shabaab fighters used loudspeakers to summon residents to an open area near the port, where hundreds gathered to watch the grisly spectacle.
Courts run by al Shabaab clerics have ordered executions, floggings and amputations in recent months, mostly in Kismayu further south, but also in rebel-held districts of the capital.
The insurgents have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
Also on Sunday, al Shabaab closed a local non-governmental organisation, ASEP, in Balad Hawa town near the Kenyan border and seized several of its members, residents said. An al Shabaab source said the staff had also been accused of spying. One witness in Marka, Ali Hussein, said by telephone that residents were forced to watch the pair killed by firing squad.
"The two teenagers were accused of spying, but we cannot judge if they were guilty for ourselves," Hussein said.
"One of the boys did not die easily, so about eight masked al Shabaab men went close and opened fire on him. Soon his body looked like chopped-up meat because of the many gunshots."
Fighting in Somalia has killed 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven 1.5 million from their homes, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
