Doumeira Islands

Disputed island
Map of the disputed Ras Doumeira region showing the currently-in-force 1900 boundary agreement
Geography
Location	Red Sea
Coordinates	12°42′56″N 43°08′53″E / 12.715465°N 43.148044°E / 12.715465; 43.148044
Total islands	2
Major islands	Doumeira, Kallida
Area	1.29 km2 (0.50 sq mi)
Highest elevation	44 m (144 ft)
Administration
Djibouti
Claimed by
Eritrea
Djibouti
Demographics
Population	Uninhabited

The Doumeira Islands (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 meters 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 km along the watershed divide of the peninsula. Furthermore, the 1900 protocol specified that Ile 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.