Ethiopia yesterday lifted restrictions on the movement of United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) peacekeeping forces along the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The restrictions on the UN soldiers were imposed two days earlier over what the Ethiopian government perceived to be lax security arrangements along the border.

Sources cited repeated illegal crossings of UNMEE vehicles with unauthorised civilians from Eritrea into Ethiopia, with the latest incident involving three Eritrean employees who crossed into Ethiopia last month and disappeared in the country, while their vehicle was found six days later in Addis Ababa.

UNMEE confirmed the incident but discounted any link between it and the restrictions "We have received no official notification for the restrictions, and were informed of the lifting this morning," UNMEE Force Commander Major General Robert Gordon said yesterday during a weekly video media briefing.

"As we are in the process of discussing this development, we were informed this morning that all the restrictions had been lifted and we now expect our freedom of movement to be re-established on either side of the boundary of the TSZ (temporary security zone)," Gordon said.

The TSZ is a 15 km-wide buffer zone on the Eritrean side, along the entire length of the 1 000 km disputed border, separating the forces of the two parties under the supervision of some 4 200 multinational UN observers and peacekeeping forces. – Sapa-DPA.