Eritrea–Ethiopia border

Italian treaties

Italy began to establish itself on the Red Sea coast in the 1880s and created the Colony of Eritrea on 1 January 1890. Its push inland ended with its defeat by Ethiopia at Adwa in 1896.^[1] In 1900, 1902 and 1908 Ethiopia and Italy then concluded three boundary agreements covering the whole border between the colony and the empire. None of those boundaries was ever marked on the ground, and none was fully delimited.^[1]

Britain expelled the Italians in 1941 and ran Eritrea until 1952. Following a UN General Assembly resolution, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia on 11 September 1952, and that day Ethiopia declared the 1900, 1902 and 1908 treaties null and void. Ethiopia later incorporated Eritrea as a province, and an armed Eritrean resistance grew.^[1]

When Eritrea became independent on 27 April 1993, the colonial line became the international border. Both countries accepted the African principle, stated by the OAU in 1964, of respecting borders as they stood at independence.^[1]

War over Badme

In 1998 a skirmish at the village of Badme set off a two-year border war. Badme became a symbol for both countries.^[3]

The Algiers agreement of 12 December 2000 ended the war and set up a Boundary Commission to delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty border on the basis of the 1900, 1902 and 1908 treaties and international law. It was not allowed to decide on grounds of fairness alone.^[1] Both countries agreed in advance that its decision would be final and binding.^[3]

The 2002 decision

The Commission issued its decision on 13 April 2002. It based the central sector on the 1900 treaty and its map, as amended in 1902; the western sector on what the place names in the 1902 treaty meant at the time; and the eastern sector on the geometric method of the 1908 treaty. Where the border follows rivers, it left the exact line to be fixed at the main dry-season channel during demarcation.^[1]

Both capitals said they had been awarded Badme.^[3] Ethiopia then sought changes to the line, and the Commission warned that this appeared to undermine the decision and the peace process. It said it could not vary the border without both countries’ agreement, and noted that it was not unusual for a boundary to divide communities.^[3]

“It may be regrettable, but it is by no means unusual, for boundary delimitation and subsequent demarcation to divide communities.”^[3]

The 2018 thaw

In 2018 Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, publicly accepted the 2000 agreement, including the Commission’s award of Badme to Eritrea.^[4] He and Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afwerki, signed an agreement in Asmara on 9 July 2018, and on 11 September they opened the border at Burre and at Zalambessa–Serha, for the first time in twenty years.^[2]

By December 2018, though, Badme was still under Ethiopian control, and many of its residents doubted it would ever be handed over.^[4]