Are Eritrean troops at Badme on “Ethiopian soil”, as Ethiopia's consul general in Bahrain says?

What was claimed

On 13 October, News of Bahrain published an interview with Shiferaw Geneti Jena, Ethiopia’s consul general in Bahrain, conducted by the editor of the Daily Tribune. The article reports him demanding that Eritrea withdraw “all its troops and military hardware out of Ethiopian territory immediately and unconditionally” A.

He said Eritrean forces, including heavily mechanised units, had crossed the internationally recognised border and set up unauthorised positions on Ethiopian soil. Eritrean troops, he said, have taken up positions in Rama, Sheraro and Badme, and along the Adigrat–Zalambessa corridor.

The article adds that “the locations are significant” because Badme “was the flashpoint of the 1998–2000 border war” A J. Neither the consul nor the article gives any evidence for the positions.

What the record shows

The consul measured the incursion against “the internationally recognised border”. That border was set by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, created by the Algiers Agreement that ended the 1998–2000 war. Both countries agreed in advance that its decisions would be “final and binding” and that each would “respect the border so determined” B.

The Commission issued its decision on 13 April 2002. When Ethiopia asked it to revisit the line, it replied in March 2003 that Badme village “lay on what was found to be the Eritrean side of the [1902] treaty line” C. Ethiopia did not dispute where the ruling put Badme. Two months later, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called “the crucial boundary ruling that places the symbolic village of Badme in Eritrea” “wrong and unjust” D.

On 5 June 2018, Ethiopia’s ruling coalition dropped its objection. It announced that Ethiopia would “fully accept” the Algiers Agreement and the ruling, which meant withdrawing “from all territories awarded to Eritrea by the EEBC, including the flashpoint town, Badme” E. No Ethiopian government has since withdrawn that acceptance.

So under the border the consul invoked, Eritrean troops at Badme are inside Eritrea. Their presence there cannot be evidence of Eritrean forces on Ethiopian soil.

The other places he named are on the Ethiopian side of the line, but the record does not support him on Rama either. When he spoke, Rama was held by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The European External Programme with Africa (EEPA) reported that an Ethiopian general and four colonels arrested by the TPLF on 23 September “escaped their captivity in Rama” on or before 13 October G. The conflict monitor ACLED recorded the Ethiopian army taking Rama on 14 October and drone strikes on Tigrayan vehicles around it the next day F. AFP’s residents described Rama as the latest town “to fall” to federal forces H. None of these sources places Eritrean troops in Rama.

The list itself had appeared four days earlier. On 9 October Horn Review, an Addis Ababa-based outlet, described “Earlier OSINT claims of EDF entry via Rama, Sheraro, Zalambessa, and Badme”: unverified claims from open-source accounts, not confirmed positions I. The consul presented the same four places as established fact.

Our verdict

False. Ethiopia’s consul general in Bahrain said Eritrean troops had crossed “the internationally recognised border” and set up positions “on Ethiopian soil”, naming Badme. Under that border Badme is in Eritrea. The boundary commission placed it there in 2002 and 2003, Ethiopia’s prime minister acknowledged it in 2003, and Ethiopia’s ruling coalition accepted it in 2018. Of the other places he named, Rama was held by Tigrayan forces until the Ethiopian army took it on 14 October, and no source places Eritrean troops there.