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The Ethiopian
government soldiers killed 48 civilians...
(Ethiopia, January,
02 2009 Ceegaag Online)
The Ethiopian government soldiers killed 48
civilians in a village in the country’s eastern Somali
region last month.
The villagers were shot in an attack on Dec. 17 at
Mooyaha, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of
Degehebur near Ethiopia’s border with Somalia, the
Ogaden National Liberation Front said in an e-mailed
statement today in the capital, Addis Ababa. The group
included a list of names of those killed.
“The area was closed off for several days in order to
remove the bodies and eliminate the evidence of a massacre,”
the ONLF said. “These people were unarmed.” State officials
weren’t available to comment on the allegation.
Ethnic Somali rebels from the ONLF are seeking autonomy
for Ethiopia’s Somali region, an arid tract of land twice
the size of England, which is also known as the Ogaden. In
June, New York-based
Human Rights Watch accused the Ethiopian government of
burning villages, executing civilians and raping women in an
effort to quell the ONLF’s insurgency. Ethiopia denied the
allegations.
Wahde Belay, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry,
didn’t answer his mobile phone when called several times
today for comment on the ONLF’s latest allegations. Korale
Illiasu, an Ethiopian Defense Ministry official, said he
couldn’t comment because he’d been transferred from his job
as spokesman with the ministry and didn’t know who had
replaced him.
In 2007, the
United Nations twice requested access to the Somali
region to conduct an assessment of human rights abuses.
Ethiopia refused the requests.
Somalia Withdrawal
Thousands of Ethiopian forces in neighboring Somalia are
expected to withdraw to Ethiopia’s Somali region this week,
two years after invading Somalia to help remove Islamists
from power and halt support for the ONLF from militias in
Somalia. At least 800,000 people have been forced from their
homes in the ensuing fighting between Ethiopian forces and
Somali militias.
Ethiopia has controlled the Ogaden since the late 19th
century. Ethiopia and Somalia fought wars from 1963-1964 and
1977-1978 over the region. Ethiopia also occupied border
areas in Somalia in 1995 in an effort to destroy an Islamist
militia that carried out attacks in the Ogaden.
Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central government
since 1991.
Source: Bloomberg
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