evidence: In mid-April this year the Djibouti government complained that Eritrean forces had crossed the border in the vicinity of Doumeira, on the Red Sea coast, and were erecting fortifications there, some of which, they claimed lay hundreds of metres inside Djiboutian territory. There have been previous problems in this remote area, and in April 1996 the two states nearly went to war after accusations of Eritrean shelling of the border town of Ras Doumeira. Relations between the two also became fraught at the time of Eritrea’s war with Ethiopia, in which Djibouti found it difficult to convince Asmara of its neutrality. Djiboutian rebel movements have also used Eritrean territory from which to mount operations from time to time.