File picture shows an Eritrean military patrol

President Ismail Omar Guelleh

The Djiboutian government on Thursday said that it will defend its territory using all available means.

Border clashes between Eritrea and Djibouti have killed nine Djiboutian soldiers and wounded 60 others in three days of fighting between the two nations, a Djiboutian defense official said on Thursday.

The Djibouti foreign ministry issued a statement on Wednesday, accusing Eritrea of seeking to destabilize the Horn of Africa region by attacking Djibouti and vowed to use all available means to defend itself.

"The Republic of Djibouti will valiantly defend its territorial integrity by all means," said Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh as he visited wounded soldiers on Thursday at a military hospital.
In the first fighting since the mid-1990s between the two countries, Eritrean and Djiboutian troops have exchanged fire along a part of their shared border overlooking strategic shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

Djibouti hosts French and U.S. military bases and is the main route to the sea for Eritrea's arch-foe Ethiopia.

"The fighting is still ongoing. The dead and injured are more today, up to nine dead and 60 wounded," said a Djiboutian military official, on condition of anonymity.

Djiboutian state media said the Red Sea state had captured 100 Eritrean prisoners.

There was, however, no independent verification of events from the remote border area that has long been a source of tension between the two countries.

The clashes erupted on Tuesday after a nearly two-month face off along their frontier. Djibouti accuses Asmara of entering its territory to build defenses.

Eritrea on Thursday denied any hostile intentions towards neighboring Djibouti following a border clash in which two Djibouti soldiers were killed.
Dozens of Djibouti soldiers were also wounded in the disputed Ras Doumeira border area on Tuesday when Eritrean soldiers opened fire on deserters, diplomatic and military sources said.

The incident was the first since a tense border standoff was triggered by an Eritrean military incursion into Djibouti on April 16.

"As the Eritrean government has repeatedly asserted, although it is closely and patiently following up the developments and its sponsors, it hereby reiterates that it would under no circumstances get involved in an invitation of squabbles and acts of hostility designed to undermine good-neighborliness," the Eritrean foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United States has warned its nationals against traveling to the Djibouti-Eritrean border.

The United States has more than 1,200 troops stationed in Djibouti, which hosts an anti-terrorism task force in the Horn of Africa. France also has a base in its former colony.

The two nations have clashed at least twice over the border area at the southern end of the Red Sea. In April 1996 they almost went to war after a Djibouti official accused Eritrea of shelling Ras Doumeira.

In 1999, Eritrea accused Djibouti of siding with Asmara's arch-foe Ethiopia, while Djibouti accused its neighbour of supporting Djiboutian rebels and having designs on the Ras Doumeira region. Eritrea has denied this.

Djibouti has accused Eritrean forces of digging trenches on both sides of the border on April 16, infringing several hundred meters into Djibouti territory. The Eritrean government has denied the accusation.

        Mean while, the Arab League's Ministerial Council at the Permanent Representatives level holds an emergency meeting in Cairo on Thursday to discuss Djibouti's request on the developments at the borders with Eritrea.

        A league official said a request was presented by Djibouti to hold the session to discuss Eritrea's aggression on Djibouti's territories yesterday.

        League Secretary General Amre Moussa held consultations with member states which agreed on holding the meeting, the official said.

      The council would review a report prepared by the fact finding mission that visited the disputed border area of Ras Dumira. Eritrean troops entered the area last April.