On April 6 edition of Awate.com's Gedab News, we made a mistake when we reported a half-confirmed news that a military clash in the Tsorona area was between Eritrea and Ethiopia. There was indeed a clash but it was not between Eritrean and Ethiopian forces.

Our faithful readers are entitled to know how and why this happened and what we intend to do to ensure it does not happen again.  Regarding our reliability, we will let the record speak for itself as any fair-minded reader will vouch for it.  As for an ombudsman-like detail of how the mistake occurred, with regret, we cannot do this without disclosing how we gather and disseminate information which, given the situation in Eritrea and the regime's hostility to the citizens, we cannot do as it will result in innocent patriots losing their liberty or life.  All we can do is to apologize to our readers for the heightened anxiety you, and all of us, had to go through and to pledge to double our efforts to find a balance between accurate and quick timely information.

We believe that those who support Awate.com's mission to provide timely and accurate information about Eritrea, those who know what is going on in Eritrea will understand.  As for those who don't, and choose to live in the delusion that "if it is not reported in PFDJ media it must not be true", there is nothing we can tell them other than to open their eyes and recall all the news published by Awate.com since 2000 that was never covered by PFDJ media and has been repeatedly verified by other news sources, NGOs and governments.

Now to the correction and clarification. 

On April 6, we told you that we would provide you with additional details as they become available.   For the last six days, we have been checking with all our sources and this is what we can report of activities during the period in question:

1. There was a military clash on April 6 in the Tsorona area and the EDF was placed in a higher state of alert in Tsorona and Bure. This state of alert has not been lifted.

2. There is no evidence, nor a third party confirmation, that the military clash was between the government forces of Eritrea and Ethiopia.

3. For the first time, the government of Ethiopia has deepened its relationship with the Eritrean opposition groups beyond political to military affairs. Several days before we published our report, Ethiopia's Chief of Staff, Zamora Yonus, met with the armed wings of Eritrea's opposition groups and came to an agreement as to where the armed forces of the two blocs of the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) should be placed: one camp in Edaga Hamus and another in the vicinity of Shire.

4. The co-ordination with Eritrea's armed groups also extends to groups who are not members of the Eritrean Democratic Alliance.

5. The Eritrean regime has become the de-facto arms merchant and logistics co-coordinator to any and all rogue elements and states who want to arm any group in Somalia opposed to Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its main supporter, Ethiopia.  This project is being supervised, personally, by Isaias Afwerki.

6. UNMEE's voluntary and involuntary shrinkages have compromised its mission, and its control of the so-called buffer zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia.  Eritrea's armed forces, including mechanized forces, as well as Ethiopian and Somalian opposition groups, move about parts of the area at will.

Regarding our report, the only thing we can say with reasonable certainty is the clash was not between the government forces of Eritrea and Ethiopia .  We cannot say with certainty which parties were involed but we will share the information with you as soon as we do.    

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