Word: massawa
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...easy task. In Eritrea, where rebel forces control 90% of the territory, fighting has swirled for weeks in and around the important port of Massawa (pop. 30,000). Rebel positions downtown have been bombed by Ethiopian pilots flying not only MiG's but also U.S. jets left over from the days (before May 1977) when the Addis Ababa regime was a U.S. friend. According to Western eyewitnesses, Soviet warships have been lobbing shells into the city. Most of Massawa's civilians have fled to the nearby hills, where they live in makeshift shelters, in desperate need of food...
...hottest wars going on anywhere in the world at present are both taking place within Ethiopia. In the northern province of Eritrea, Addis Ababa's Marxist military government of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam has lost everything but the provincial capital of Asmara and the port cities of Massawa and Assab to the secessionist rebels. If Ethiopia should be defeated in both of its desert wars, it would lose more than 40% of its territory, 6 million of its 28 million people, and its access...
...Asmara, the city that Benito Mussolini called "the gem of the Horn of Africa," the Ethiopian army is increasingly nervous. The vital 56-mile highway to the port of Massawa, as well as all other roads, is frequently cut, if not actually controlled, by Eritrean forces. The railroad from the port of Assab carries no traffic; its bridges have been destroyed by guerrillas. Ethiopian army units dare not travel unescorted more than a few miles outside the capital. When they do go farther, they move by convoy with tank protection and air cover. Their supplies arrive only...
...determined first to defeat the Ethiopians. Mengistu's troops still hold the Eritrean capital of Asmara, but they can only resupply it by air or by twice-weekly convoys from the Red Sea, which are often ambushed or sniped at on the way from the port of Massawa to the city. The rebels have long since cut off all land routes between Asmara and the rest of the country...
...toll of Italian dead and wounded was said to have been heavy in the fighting for Agordat, gateway to Italy's Red Sea Port of Massawa, 100 miles eastward...