afrol News, 27 July - A report by United Nations monitoring group on Somalia indicted Eritrea of violating the 1992 international arms embargo by secretly supplying huge quantities of arms - explosives and surface-to-air missiles to Somali Islamic insurgents.

Eritrean authorities denied the story, despite the fact that the report has been backed with photographic evidences of SA-18 missiles under the possession of the Islamists, which were said to have been used by Islamists against a Belarus aircraft that had made an emergency landing in Mogadishu.

The report, which was submitted to the UN Security Council, discovered that there are more arms proliferations in the horn of Africa now than during the days of the 1991 civil war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The most disturbing part of the report is that some of the weapons have landed in the hands of mercenary youths defending the ousted Islamic Courts Union.

Eritrea still maintains denial, after all, the report took not of numerous flights the country has embarked on to smuggle arms from Asmara to Mogadishu.

The country’s Ambassador to the UN, Araya Desta, reacts in a letter, saying the accusations have been merely fabricated and that they from part of subtle disinformation campaign to cover up adventurism of Ethiopia that helped in dislodging the Islamists from power militarily.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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