evidence: Postindependence relations with Ethiopia, initially warm and supportive, became strained over trade issues and the question of Ethiopia’s access to Eritrea’s Red Sea ports. In 1998 relations deteriorated rapidly when a border dispute, centred around the hamlet of Badme, exploded into violence. Following two years of bloodshed, a peace was negotiated in December 2000, and the UN established a peacekeeping mission along the border in question. An international boundary commission agreed on a border demarcation in 2002, but Ethiopia rejected the decision and refused to leave the territory that the commission had recognized as Eritrean. Meanwhile, tension had been growing between the UN peacekeepers and the Eritrean government, which accused several UN workers of being spies. The UN withdrew its mission in 2008. In the same year, another boundary dispute, this one with Djibouti, escalated when Eritrea amassed troops along the Ras Doumeira border area. Fighting between Eritrean and Djiboutian soldiers led to the deaths of more than 30 people. Eritrea was embroiled in yet another regional conflict when it was accused of supporting insurgents in Somalia’s civil war.