Canadian Peacekeepers patrolling the border in Eritrea look set to come home “in 10 days”.
The BBC is reporting that the Eritrean Government has specifically asked for the troops of 4 nations, Canada, the US, the EU, and Russia to leave their territory.
The UN mission monitoring the buffer zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia is comprised of soldiers from dozens of countries, so it is interesting that only these 4 naitons (or bloc in the case of the EU) were specifically asked to leave.
Update
I went looking for the operation at the Canadian Forces website and only found Operations Eclipse and Addition… which ran from early 2000 to June 2003… involved 450 soldiers at the start, but then was reduced, as I read it, to 6 soldiers. However, that mission has apparently ended. So it doesn’t seem as though any Canadian military resources will be affected by this announcement by the Eritreans… which makes the announcement that much more… odd.
As a whole, I believe the mission will not be able to function without the support of these 4 key nations. I may be wrong, I’ll look into it. What is clear is that Eritrea is no longer interested in the UN mission and it’s buildup of forces along the disputed will llikely continue and possibly result in a resumption of hostilities with Ethiopia. That’s all that particular region needs is more war, but it seems for now inevitable.
In other news, 3 Canadian soldiers were wounded in Afghanistan today while on a special operations mission with Afghan and US forces. The soldiers were part of the elite Joint Task Force 2 unit and so the circumstances of their injuries have been kept under tight wraps. You can read the CAF News Release here.
Apparently 22 “militants” were killed during the operation.
A rough day for Canadian Forces abroad. But wherever You are… we back here in the Great White North are proud of you.