Press Release
Ethiopian Army Suffers Over 25,000 Killed and Wounded

Fighting continued today for the third day running on the Mereb-Setit front as the TPLF regime continued its naked aggression against Eritrea. This is despite the extremely heavy casualties that it has sustained in the first two days of heavy fighting.

A total of 25,200 Ethiopian troops were killed or wounded, nine tanks destroyed and thousands of pieces of weapons captured.
Meanwhile, in a press statement issued yesterday, the Eritrean Armed Forces affirmed that the TPLF army has put itself into a quagmire from which it will never extricate itself. It described as baseless, and characteristic of its hollow boasting, the casualties that the TPLF claimed it had inflicted on the Eritrean army. This lie is principally designed to embellish its electoral objectives as well as to deceive the Ethiopian people.

The Eritrean Armed Forces asserted that the insatiable appetite of the enemy to occupy more sovereign Eritrean territory and to subordinate the Eritrean people will be foiled as before.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara, 14 May 2000