Intro: Ethiopia is reinforcing positions along its northern border, preparing for another round of fighting with Eritrea. correspondent Scott Stearns is at the front, where he reports thousands of civilians have been driven from their homes.

Text: Convoys of trucks climbed the steep, dusty hills of northern Tigray province, carrying ammunition and diesel fuel toward the front.

Russian self-propelled guns, artillery mounted on tank bodies, line this rocky ridge, flanked by anti-aircraft guns and infantry dug-in behind low rock walls.

This is the Tsorona front, where Rthiopia says it is defending itself in this border war against Eritrean invasion, and Eritrea says Ethiopia is trying to prevent it from reclaiming land it says is rightfully Eritrea's.

Heavy shelling has displaced more than 16-thousand people on this front. less than 10-kilometers from the fighting, under an outcrop of dry red rocks near the village of Embadakayna, more than 160 families are living in caves.

They cook in small, mud ovens outside thin, stick shacks draped with blankets and cardboard roofs. A young mother stews goat meat while her son fights with a chicken for a scrap of paper torn from a school exercise book. It is an english lesson, printed neatly in blue ink. it reads: "the day is long."

Ababa gebreselassie was one of the first people to move to the caves. with thin gray hair braided close to her head, ms. gebreselassie says she left her home in the village of maihamatu when the compound came under attack from eritrean shellings.

Ms. Gebreselassie says it is a two-kilometer walk to water from the cave. But compared to the lives of hers sons and her brother at the front, she thinks it's not so bad. She says-- we have some food. What is hard is how cold it gets at night in the rocks.

Zerou Berhane is a local council member, responsible for distributing blankets, plastic sheeting, and a ration of wheat. with fighting on the Tsorona front continuing, he says the safest place for civilians is to stay in the hills.

Mr. Zerou says they resettle people in caves because they cannot build new houses for everyone who is displaced. He says -- here in the rocks, the people are protected from shelling.

More and more Ethiopian soldiers are moving north in trucks and on foot through abandoned stone villages. After eight-months of threats from Eritreans across the border, Michael Milew says it is time he joins the fight -- instead of waiting it out in the caves.

After waiting to see what has happened in this war, Mr. Milew says -- all my older brothers are at the front now, so it is time I leave the family here and join them.

It is an unlikely war between former allies divided by economic jealousies, territorial rivalries, and a seeming desire to prove they do not need each other, although no two countries in africa are more alike in language and culture than Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ms. Gebreselassie says everything seemed fine before Eritrean independence in 1993. Now with this war, she wonders if life here will ever be the same.

Ms. Gebreselassie says before the war, Ethiopians and Eritreans crossed the border to attend each others' weddings and baptisms. she says -- it is why we were so surprised by the fighting, because before we were friends. (signed)

NEB/SKS/PCF/RAE
16-Feb-99 10:53 AM EST (1553 UTC)
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Three Ethiopian aircraft attempted to bomb the reservoir around 20 km (12 miles) west of Assab but missed their target, Eritrean officials and independent witnesses said.

``They could not kill anything...except maybe a wandering ostrich,'' Lieutenant-Colonel Alem Seged told Reuters after the attack.

Ethiopia said the bombing was in response to earlier Eritrean shelling, although journalists near the frontline said they had not heard any heavy artillery fire by late afternoon.

Ethiopian government spokeswoman Selome Taddesse also said Ethiopia's air attacks had inflicted heavy damage. ``Of course, you don't expect the Eritreans to admit their losses,'' she told Reuters.

Assab is 70 km (45 miles) from the Ethiopian border and the latest frontline in the border war between the two Horn of Africa neighbours.

The reservoir, which was also attacked on Sunday, is the main source of piped water for Assab, which lies in the hot and dry lowlands at Eritrea's southeastern extreme.

Conflict between the two countries erupted on February 6 in the contested Badme region, a sparsely populated patch of mountain land along their 1,000-km (600 mile) frontier.

It quickly spread to a front near the highland town of Tsorona, south of Eritrea's capital Asmara, and fighting started on the frontier close to Assab on Sunday.

The Badme and Tsorona fronts were quiet on Tuesday, officials said.

Ethiopia says it will fight until Eritrea withdraws from territory it occupied last May during the first round of the war.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in May 1993 with Ethiopia's blessing, but relations quickly soured.

At the root of the war lies a dispute about colonial maps drawn up by the Italians who ruled Eritrea in the first half of the century. Economic rivalry and fierce national pride have also fuelled the conflict.

The port of Assab was a vital conduit for landlocked Ethiopia's trade before last May when the Ethiopian government diverted most of its trade to neighbouring Djibouti.