Ethiopians ’on Somali border'

Press, 8 March 1978, Page 8

Ethiopians ’on Somali border'

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw A Polish news agency correspondent in Addis Ababa has reported that Ethiopian troops have reached the Somali border at one point in their Ogaden Desert offensive. Jacek Kalabinski of the i official agency, P.A.P.. said: that the Ethiopians had also ; pushed Somali forces off the I railway between Addis I Ababa and Djibouti and re-j captured the town of Jijiga. ■ He reported that the advancing troops had reached the border near the Somali town Of Borama. 80km north-east of Jijiga. Kalabinski said that Jijiga would be the starting point “for the next phase of the offensive into the Ogaden, which is aimed at driving all Somali troops away from the entire Ogaden territory.” He said that the Ethiopian Army and People’s Militia had launched a two-pronged offensive

While Ethiopia claims to have recaptured Jijiga, the Western Somalia Liberation Front says it has annihilated the force, “purely Russian and Cuban,” sent to recapture the town. “Danab,” the dailv bulletin of the W.S.L.F. said: “With indomitable heroism the W.S.L.F. liberation army has annihilated and wiped them out, frustrating the barbarous invasion of the Russian and Cuban colonialists.” Cuba has supplied some 12.000 soldiers and Russia about SIOOOM in arms aid to the Ethiopians, as well as a Soviet general to guide the fighting, according to the American State Department. Poland, along with other Soviet bloc countries, also supports the Ethiopians. The West has refused repeated pleas by Somalia for aid.