Soldiers 'continue to rape'

2007-11-29 08:53

Kebridehar - Ethiopian soldiers have abused civilians, committing arson and rape, in a southeastern area where they are fighting rebels, but there have been some improvements in aid delivery, say residents.

However, Ethiopia's prime minister denied there was a humanitarian crisis in the Ogaden and his government had denied its soldiers had committed abuses. A top United Nations relief official who visited the region on Tuesday said much more remained to be done.

A thin, pensive 30-year-old man, who asked not to be identified out of fear, spoke about two incidents on Friday in which the army burned two villages, Lebiga and Korelitsa, to the ground, killing one man.

The army, the man said, was killing his neighbours "like goats".

Officials in the area said they had heard similar reports. They also asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

'Don't speak to outsiders'

The man also described rapes - some of them gang rapes - and public hangings in the region and said that villagers had been told not to speak to international observers.

Officials in the area also said villagers had been told not to speak to outsiders, and that also was mentioned in a September report by a United Nations fact-finding mission.

Another 26-year-old man who also asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, accused the government of withholding food in order to punish fighters and supporters of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist movement that in April attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in the region, killing 74 people.

In May, the Ethiopian military began counterinsurgency operations, which had stymied trade and some food aid.

On Tuesday, the region appeared calm. Government soldiers dotted the flat, arid landscape and towns of Jijiga and Kebridehar, though there was no evidence of any significant military operations.

Catastrophic situation

Women - some wearing scarves of hot pink - fluttered through the streets. Men in Jijiga walked along the main promenade.

But when questioned, residents were reticent. One man in Kebridehar said he believed the streets were full of military intelligence officers.

In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi dismissed a question in parliament about a pending crisis in the Ogaden.

Meles said: "Whatever some international media and some organisations said about the Ogaden, it's absolutely a lie that there's a humanitarian crisis in the Ogaden.

"Some people from the UN actually wanted to see for themselves what was going on in the Ogaden and I told them to go see from themselves what was actually there."

John Holmes, the UN's humanitarian chief, on Wednesday described the humanitarian situation in the Ogaden as "potentially serious."

"I didn't get the impression that we are in a catastrophic situation now," Holmes said, adding that "there's an awful lot of challenges still to address".

- AP