Ethiopian-Eritrean Border Clashes Continue

Eritrean and Ethiopian troops pummeled each other with shell and rocket fire along their disputed border Tuesday, while diplomats and hundreds of frightened foreigners fled the Eritrean capital.

Advancing up a steep mountain along their shared border, the Eritrean army pushed between five and eight miles into Ethiopian territory. Dozens of Eritrean troops were wounded in fierce fighting.

It was not immediately clear how many casualties the Ethiopian side suffered.

In the Eritrean capital, Asmara, 65 miles to the northwest, German and Russian diplomats boarded evacuation flights after closing their embassies.

A U.S.-chartered plane left for Cairo with 50 diplomats and dependents, 120 naturalized Americans born in Eritrea and 80 other foreigners.

“This is the one chance I’ve got to get out. If I don’t take it, I’m afraid I’ll be trapped here,” said Gabriel Ephrem, an Eritrean from San Diego.

Also aboard were a handful of Ethiopian diplomats, ordered out by Eritrea in retaliation for the expulsion of its diplomats from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last week. Two diplomats remain in each capital.

The two Horn of Africa nations, which earlier this decade were part of the same country, are battling over several patches of border land.