Doumeira Islands

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Doumeira Islands
Disputed island
Ras Doumeira.png
Map of the disputed Ras Doumeira region showing the currently-in-force 1900 boundary agreement
Doumeira Islands
Geography
Location Red Sea
Coordinates 12°42′56″N43°08′53″E / 12.715465°N 43.148044°E / 12.715465; 43.148044
Total islands2
Major islandsDoumeira, Kallida
Area1.29 km2 (0.50 sq mi)
Highest elevation44 m (144 ft)
Administration
Regions Obock
Sub-prefecture Moulhoule
Claimed by
Regions Southern Red Sea
Subregions Southern Denkalya
Demographics
PopulationUninhabited

The Doumeira Islands (French : Douméra, Somali : Dumeera, Tigrinya : ዱሜራ, Arabic : دميرة) are situated northeast of Djibouti and east of Eritrea near the Bab el-Mandeb in the Red Sea. They consist of Doumeira, located less than one kilometer off of the Eritrean and Djiboutian shore, and the much smaller island of Kallîda, which is 250 metres (820 ft) to the east.

History

The currently-in-force 1900 boundary agreement specifies that the international boundary starts at Cape Doumeira (Ras Doumeira) at the Red Sea and runs for 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) along the watershed divide of the peninsula. Furthermore, the 1900 protocol specified that Île Doumeira (Doumeira Island) immediately offshore and its adjacent smaller islets would not be assigned sovereignty and would remain a demilitarized neutral zone. [1]

In January 1935, Italy and France signed the Franco-Italian Agreement wherein, among other things, a strip of territory at the northernmost end of French Somaliland (Djibouti), including the Doumeira Islands, was ceded to Italy (Eritrea). [2] However, the question of ratification has brought this agreement, and its provision of substantial parts of Djibouti to Eritrea, into question. [3] [4] In April 1996 the two countries almost went to war after a Djibouti official accused Eritrea of shelling Ras Doumeira.

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References

  1. "International Boundary Studies for most of the world". Archived from the original on 2008-09-24. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  2. Langer, William L. (1948). An Encyclopaedia of World History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 990.
  3. "Djibouti-Eritrea boundary row re-emerges". 2008-04-28. Retrieved 2009-08-21.
  4. "The Eritrea-Djibouti border dispute" (PDF). Institute for Security Studies. 2008-09-15. Retrieved 2014-07-14.