The company which operates a hundred-year-old railway line between Ethiopia and Djibouti has taken several European diplomats along it by train in an attempt to persuade foreign governments to help fund badly-needed repairs.

The director of the company which is a joint venture between the Ethiopian and Djibouti governments told the BBC that some parts of the track, which is more than three-hundred kilometres long, had almost worn away and had needed repair for more than sixty years.

He said the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea had increased pressure on the line because it was now used to transport Ethiopian imports and exports, which used to go through the Eritrean port of Asab.