Two hundred and twenty Irish soldiers are next month due to join a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), the mission said Tuesday.
The Irish troops will be based at UNMEE's Asmara headquarters, a western diplomatic source said.
In July, Dublin approved the deployment of its soldiers to UNMEE, which is mandated to monitor a ceasefire reached a year ago at the end of a two-year border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
An UNMEE spokesman told AFP that the Irish would replace French Foreign Legionnaires before December 15 and would stay in Asmara for at least a year.
There are 4,200 troops and military observers in UNMEE, mostly deployed in a buffer zone along the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea -- Addis Abeba (AFP)
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