Foreign Office travel warning on Djibouti/Eritrea conflict

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has raised its travel warning for Eritrea and Djibouti as a frontier dispute heats up between the African states.

The FCO now advises against all travel to the border area because it has "received credible reports of military action, including casualties" and "an incursion by Eritrean forces into the disputed Djibouti border region".

The two countries have a long-running dispute over the Ras Doumeira promontory on the Red Sea.

Military clashes last week left nine soldiers dead, the AFP news agency reports, and diplomatic efforts have so far been unsuccessful.

Eritrea's border with Ethiopia also remains on the high alert travel warning list and is a highly militarised area.

In particular the FCO advises against all travel into the Temporary Security Zone - a 25 kilometre-wide strip along the border - and the adjacent ten kilometre area to the north, apart from the towns of Barentu, Medefera and Adi Qeyh.