Press Release
Ethiopia's Large-Scale Offensive Totally Foiled

The large-scale offensive that the TPLF regime launched on the Tsorona flank of the Alitena-Mereb front on Sunday March 14th has been totally foiled around 9:00 a.m. today.

Ethiopia launched repetitive attacks the whole day yesterday which continued throughout the night and until the morning hours today.

It has not yet been possible to give an estimation of the huge human losses that the TPLF regime has sustained in the tree days of fighting which can better be described as a slaughter. In what has become a standard pattern now, the TPLF regime employed human waves for successive assaults with little apparent concern for the massive losses that its army continued to sustain.

Furthermore, the callous regime forcibly brought about 5,000 villagers to the battle areas yesterday and compelled them to carry ammunition on pack animals and their own backs thereby rendering them victims of the fighting.

While thousands of its troops fell like leaves in the battlefront, the TPLF regime's hypocrisy and blatant lies reached its height as it first denied the existence of fighting and later tried to downplay its intensity.

Ethiopia unleashed the war of aggression in defiance of UN Security Council calls of 4 March to "stop its continued military action." Ethiopia has in practice rejected the OAU Framework by putting forth new preconditions. These acts demonstrate that Ethiopia was never interested in peace and that its agenda transcends the border dispute.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara, 16 March 1999