Ethiopians 'suffer in silence'
2008-01-23 08:19
Degahabur - The scars on Mohammed Dhaqane's tanned face offer a glimpse of the kind of ordeal he and many others have been subjected to over the past year in Ethiopia's Ogaden region.
"I was just a businessman, I had no involvement in any matter," he said, his hearing and delivery impaired by his wounds. "Now I can't work or feed my family."
Mohammed was among 50 people who were on board a bus that was caught in the middle of a firefight four months ago between government troops and rebel fighters in Danan, a sparsely-settled town in the region.
A bullet sliced his right cheekbone and cut the lower portion of his right ear. He had suffered nerve problems ever since and his health had steadily declined.
77 people killed
Dozens of locals had similar stories of death, mutilation and hardship.
Ethiopia's little-known Ogaden region was a vast expanse of often hostile land baked most of the year by a scorching sun and inhabited by ethnic Somalis.
Ethiopia launched a massive clampdown in the oil-rich Muslim region against the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a secessionist rebel group formed in 1984 in response to what it claimed was systematic marginalisation by Addis Ababa.
The counter-insurgency started in April last year, after the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil venture about 145km east of the regional capital, Jijiga, killing 77 people.
Since then, both the ONLF and aid groups had claimed widespread reprisals and punishments on civilians to undermine support for the rebels in the region.
'People have been killed, raped'
Thousands of refugees had flocked to neighbouring countries blaming rape and other abuses, including the burning of villages.
"Don't you see? People have scattered, everyone has run away," said an elderly street vendor in Degahabur, a zone designated by the United Nations as one of the most affected areas by the conflict.
"We don't talk about that around here, you never know what would happen," she added, referring to reprisals.
"Everything has happened here, people have been killed and raped," a frightened woman nearby said before quickly fleeing.
She also claimed that government troops had even arrested elderly people, some as old as 80, for refusing to join in the crackdown. Regional authorities categorically denied abuse claims.
"If there ever were human rights violations, they were done by the terrorists (ONLF). They (locals) are our own people, why should we commit such actions upon them?" regional president Abdullahi Hassan asked.
"Those who burn villages are the ONLF and the Islamic Courts."
Ogadenis expressed their dismay over the consequences brought about by the conflict in their region, long a bone of contention with neighbouring Somalia.
"Occasionally, they (soldiers) come around and detain people suspected of links with the ONLF," a khat dealer said while angrily stuffing khat leaves in his mouth.
- AFP