ZALA ANBESA, on the Ethiopian-Eritrean Border, Aug 14 (AFP) - On the western and central fronts of the dormant war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Addis Ababa's troops cautiously await the arrival of UN peacekeepers.

Although both sides in a conflict that began in May 1998 agreed in June to cease fighting, the Ethiopians remain on their guard.

Last week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council to authorise a force of some 4,200 men to monitor the ceasefire.

The peacekeeping mission would be the fourth largest of the 14 currently in operation around the world.

Ethiopia, which, like Eritrea, has always maintained it has been the victim of agression, is taking no chances.

Its successful military push launched in May this year allowed it to pretty much dictate the terms of the June accord, signed in Algiers, a deal that authorised Ethiopian troops to remain on Eritrean soil until two weeks after the blue helmets' arrival.

Day and night, come rain or shine, Ethiopian troops along the front line -- from Badme in the west to Zala Anbesa on the central front -- are kept on their toes with sporting activities, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Dozens of tanks, batteries of artillery and lighter weapons are regularly checked and such hardware rotates from front to front.

The May 12 offensive pushed the frontline north, over the border and well into mountainous regions of Eritrea.

Morale among the troops is high, boosted by their military successes, undamped by Asmara's claim that its retreats were strategic.

Mistrust prevails, however, fuelled by reports of continuing forced conscription in Eritrea and by doubts about Eritrea's desire for peace.

At elevated Eritrean points such as Forto, once a strategic command post 10 kilometers (six miles) north of the border town of Zala Anbesa, thousands of Ethiopian troops are dismantling trenches and recovering building materials.

Barely a roof remains intact in Zala Anbesa itself, not, according to Addis Ababa, the result of bombs or artillery, but of the systematic plundering of building materials by the Eritreans.

All around this once important trading town, soldiers have uncovered thousands of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.

On the bitumen road to Senafe, a little further north than Forto, former Eritrean bunkers are now occupied by Ethiopian troops.

Rain and constant heavy traffic have badly damaged roads designed to accommodate just a few dozen vehicles a day but over which, when the war was at its height, hundreds of tanks passed regularly.

The Ethiopian army must now fill pot holes, flatten bumps and repair many small bridges.

When the UN force eventually arrives -- no date for this has yet been set -- it will deploy inside a 25-kilometer (15 mile) wide strip of land along the Eritrean side of the border. Annan told the Security Council that the force would include 585 soldiers to clear mines, 220 military observers and three infantry battalions -- two of 890 troops each and one of 610 soldiers -- to protect the observers and to man checkpoints in sensitive areas.

WAELA NIEBI, Ethiopia, Aug 13 (AFP) - More than 3,000 ethnic Kunama in Eritrea have crossed over into Ethiopia where they are receiving assistance from members of the same tribe, after accusing the Eritrean army of trying to forcibly recruit them into their ranks.

In late June, Eritrea and Ethiopia signed an agreement to halt their bloody two-year war, in which well over a million people are estimated to have been displaced.

"We are fleeing extortion and forced recruitment by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) army, and hope to be able to till our lands one day without outside intervention," said Berhane Marco, a refugee who formerly ran a USAID-backed project in Eritrea.

"They (the EPLF) take our husbands for the war, we have suffered enough," said Khalsoum Ibrahim, a mother of four, and among more than 1,700 other Eritrean Kunama at a camp in Waela Niebi.

The Kunama, who live in southwestern Eritrea, are one of nine Eritrean ethnic groups, representing about 100,000 people of the country's total population of 3.5 million.

They have long accused Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans in the highlands of encroaching on their lands. The Kunama have links with Eritrea's opposition movement, commonly known as the Alliance.

The ethnic group has given support to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Setit and Gash. This organisation has fought sporadically against Eritrea's army since 1993, according to the South-African-based Institute for Security Studies.

More families from Eritrea's southwest Gash Barka region were expected to arrive soon in Waela Niebi.

Authorities in Ethiopia's western Tigre province have also distributed blankets and cereals to 1,826 other Eritrean Kunamas living in camps in Badme and Shiraro.

The refugees here in Waela Niebi are requesting humanitarian assistance. "We address an SOS to all non-governmental and humanitarian organisations of good faith, and hope our call is heard," added Marco, 38, former director of an agricultural project in Gash Barka.

Many of these people left their homes less than a month ago, walking for several days before setting up the camp with scavanged wood and plastic tarps provided by officials.

The UN World Food Program paid a visit last week to the refugee camp, where children are showing signs of malnutrition and drinking water is in short supply despite heavy overnight storms.

"For the past four days, it has rained a lot overnight, and the nights are cold, which may provoke other diseases in addition to malaria," Marco said.

Ibrahim said she and her family would remain "until the end of the war," even though Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace accord brokered by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on June 18 in Algiers.

The accord calls for deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in a buffer zone which will extend along the border 25 kilometers (15 miles) into Eritrea, as well as the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from areas inside Eritrea beyond disputed border regions.

SENAFE, occupied Eritrea, Aug 12 (AFP) - The fighting stopped a couple of months ago, but residents of this Eritrean trading town still have to contend with the presence of troops from Ethiopia until the blue helmets make an appearance.

Most of Senafe's 6,000 residents fled ahead of Ethiopia's May offensive, which gave Addis Ababa the upper hand in ceasefire negotiations: under an accord signed last month, the Ethiopians are allowed to stay in Eritrea until the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers.

Senafe is 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of the border, about the same distance as the maximum range of artillery fire.

Aside from the large contingent of troops, most of the people here now are old men, children and women.

Amlesset Haile, 22, and her daughter Luam, have come home after fleeing the figthing, the latest chapter of a war that first began in May 1998.

"We just want everything to go back to normal," she said, pumping water from a well outside her small brick cottage.

Shell damage and bullet marks are still visible on many other buildings in Senafe. The hospital is closed, the phone system is down and schools are shut for want of teachers.

Here and there Eritrean flags flutter timidly.

The primary concern of most residents is to make sure there is food on the table every day, said Hagi Humer Ibrahim, an old man.

But people complain there is not enough to eat, nor sufficient water, nor any electricity at all.

Elders and Ethiopian officers have set up a committee to look into such issues and to provide cheap fertiliser to hundreds of farmers and to set up a dispensary. Food aid is also being distributed in a part of town spared from artillery fire.

Eritrean opposition figures have come to Senafe and chat with the local population.

The Ethiopian army brings in the food aid. After registering, beneficiaries get 15 kilos (36 pounds) of wheat to last them a month.

Other economic activity -- raising livestock, trading fruit, vegetables, spices and clothes -- resumed three weeks ago, residents said.

Shewit Gebre Medhin, 15, between cries of "beles" -- sugared fruit -- told AFP that both the Ethiopian birr and the Eritrean nafka are acceptable currencies in Senafe.

The nearest Eritrean look-out posts lie on high ground just a couple of kilometers (miles) away, according to locals.

It is not clear when the Ethiopians will leave this town which they wholly accept belongs to Eritrea. Under the ceasefire accord, the soldiers can stay until two weeks after the UN peacekeepers deploy. But the date -- and many other details -- of that operation have yet to be worked out.