Ethiopia has started recalling its troops from disputed territories on the border with Eritrea.
The move is in compliance with a landmark peace deal the two countries signed in July.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed the peace pact to end the hostilities that began with a two-year border war in 1998, deteriorating into 18 years of stalemated relations.
The border town of Badme was the flashpoint for the conflict, resulting in the death of tens of thousands.
After the July peace pact, families that were displaced by the conflict returned to rebuild their homes in the once-contested areas.
Ethiopia in September reopened its embassy in the Eritrean capital after the July peace accord to restore ties after the two nations ended decades of conflict.
Eritrea was once a province of its larger southern neighbour and comprised its entire coastline.
After a bloody, decades-long independence struggle, Eritrea voted in 1993 to separate, rendering Ethiopia landlocked.
The two countries then went to war from 1998 to 2000 after a border dispute turned violent.
A 2002 UN-backed boundary demarcation was meant to settle the dispute for good, but Ethiopia refused to abide by it and held on to disputed territory meant to be under Eritrean control.
Elevated to the premiership in April, Abiy announced in June that Ethiopia would hand back the disputed areas including the flashpoint town of Badme where the first shots of the border war were fired.
Source: Africafeeds.com
