Ethiopian government spokeswoman Selome Taddesse said Eritrean forces tried to push into the contested border region of Badme but that Ethiopia's army held firm.

``Ethiopian forces destroyed six Eritrean tanks in two offensives launched by the enemy beginning early Monday morning,'' she told Reuters.

She said sporadic fighting was continuing in the area and that Eritrea injured two civilians in heavy shelling on the Zalambessa front further to the east.

But Eritrea flatly denied starting a new offensive.

``There is nothing at all, it's all quiet. We have no reports of fighting.'' a senior foreign ministry official told Reuters. ``Yesterday they said they had inflicted huge losses on us. Now they say we can launch an offensive. It's totally contradictory.''

Ethiopia said on Sunday that it had killed, wounded or captured over 45,000 Eritrean troops and destroyed 77 tanks in border battles since February 23.

Eritrea also ridiculed those claims.

``These figures are completely forged,'' the state news agency reported a senior government official as saying on Monday.

Both Ethiopia and Eritrea claim the upper hand in the war but neither side has listed its own losses.

The conflict between the Horn of Africa neighbours broke out last May and erupted again in early Feburary after an eight-month lull.

Eritrea occupied the Badme region in the first round of the war but was pushed out of the area last month after Ethiopian forces broke through its lines.

In that battle alone, Ethiopia said it killed, wounded or captured over 22,300 Eritrean soldiers, destroyed 26 tanks and captured 15 more, and shot down two MiG-29 fighter planes.

Both sides have accepted a peace proposal put forward by the Organisation of African Unity but they have different interpretations of what the plan actually calls for.

Eritrea says it complied with the peace plan by withdrawing from Badme but Ethiopia insists Eritrea is obliged to pull out of other pockets of territory along the border.

An Ethiopian government statement issued Sunday said that "more than 45,000 enemy troops have been killed, wounded or captured", while "77 tanks have been destroyed and 19 tanks have been captured."

However, an Eritrean government official said that "these figures are completely forged", according to Eritrea's ERINA news agency in a despatch received here.

The Asmara government said that Ethiopia could much such claims "without having to worry about proving anything", since there was no independent access to battle zones on border territory fought over since May last year.

The statement pointed out that "the entire Tigray region (is) off limits to journalists and independent media" and charged that the Ethiopian claim was a response to "international verification of the massive losses" Addis Ababa's army had sustained in "recent fighting".

War broke out last year over the ill-defined border between the northeastern Tigray region of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which was an Ethiopian province on the Red Sea before mainly Tigrayan and Eritrean rebel armies ousted dictator Lieutenant-Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam in May 1991.

The new Addis Ababa regime of Meles Zenawi, now prime minister, then saw Eritrea become effectively independent, and its status as a full-fledged member of the international community was officially recognised in May 1993.

Heavy artillery and infantry fighting erupted last year, after a gradual deterioration of ties, and broke out anew following a seven-month lull when diplomatic bids to resolve the conflict achieved little.

In February, Ethiopia seized back Badme, a town taken by Eritrea at the outset of the war, in what was seen as a major symbolic counter-offensive. Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki then informed the UN Security Council that he would accept an Organisation of African Unity peace plan already agreed to by Addis Ababa.

However, fighting has since continued, alongside a propaganda war, amid disagreements over the interpretation of the OAU proposal.

In mid-March, Asmara claimed to have killed 10,000 Ethiopian soldiers on the central front, but this was denied by Addis Ababa.