SHIRARO, Ethiopia, Nov 6 (AFP) - Shiraro is a ghost-town, inhabited during the day only by a couple of hundred squatters, mostly soldiers and militiamen guaring the disputed border with Eritrea.A northwestern border town nine kilometres (five miles) from the front-lines at Badme, it came under bombardment on October 21 by Eritrean gunners.
That shelling left nine dead -- "killed instantly as more than 30 shells came in," a militiaman said -- and 24 wounded.
The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over their ill-defined 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) border broke out on May 6, but heavy early fighting was followed by an undeclared truce from June 24 until the attack on Shiraro last month.
The shells have left craters two metres (six feet) deep here and there around the town. One house caught fire and burned to the ground.
But some of the craters have been filled in, and the bloodstains covered, "to avoid disease, and the stench," according to one local.
More than 18,000 people lived here before the shelling, but 95 percent of the population have fled to safer areas.
"The remainder now hide nearby during the day, returning late at night," an independent source told AFP.
Ethiopian and Eritrean artillery gunners clashed on Tuesday 11 kilometres (seven miles) from Shiraro, near Aw-ala Nevi, leaving one Ethiopian dead.
When civilians hear the guns boom, they head for two humanitarian camps, one at Adi Hagaray, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Shiraro, the other at Zebea Gedena, 40 kilometres (24 miles) away, the independent source said.
Eritrean troops are occupying Badme, but the Ethiopian soldiers are dug in only a few kilometres (miles) away, local authorities said.
Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki said Sunday that he considered prospects for peace with Ethiopia "very dim" unless Addis Ababa agreed to a demarcation of the border, the Eritrean News Agency reported.
"The Eritrean people could not be expected to gamble with their sovereignty," Afeworki said in a television interview, according to the official ERINA agency.
The current Organisation of African Unity (OAU) chairman, Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore, together with presidents Hassan Gouled Aptidon of Djibouti and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are due to reveal a peace plan in Ouagadougou next weekend.
The proposal aims to put an end the tension marked by mass deportations by both sides and by the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The plan follows an OAU mandate to the three presidents to reconcile the differences between Addis Ababa and Asmara.
Ethiopia claims that its territory has been invaded and wants Eritrean troops to pull out of these northern areas before entering into any negotiations.
For its part, Eritrea wants the frontier to be clearly delineated under international supervision and has long expressed willingness to talk directly to Addis Ababa.
Nevertheless, each side claims that the other has deported around 30,000 nationals and sent them home, and a propaganda battle is in full swing.