Ethiopia’s isolated Ogaden: refugees tell tale of repression
BOSASO, Somalia (AFP) — Tales of rape and murder from refugees fleeing Ethiopia’s Ogaden region offer a glimpse of the violence wracking the hermetic rebel zone, off limits now even to foreign aid groups.
“It’s worse than hell, what is happening in Ethiopia,” said Fardosa, whose eyes seem to have frozen wide open since her own ordeal.
“A group of Ethiopians [Woyannes] came to my house in early August and four soldiers took me into my bedroom and assaulted me,” said the thin young woman, cradling a nine-month-old baby.
For a dollar a month, she rents a small hut in Tula Absame, a refugee camp in this northern Somali port where increasing numbers of people are flocking after fleeing Ogaden, the triangle of Ethiopia that juts into Somalia.
Even the dire living conditions and scorching heat in Tula Absame are no deterrent for hundreds of Ogaden refugees ready to brave a perilous boat journey across the Gulf of Aden to seek a better life in Yemen or elsewhere.
Ethiopia Woyanne has launched a major crackdown in the vast Ogaden region, whose residents are mainly ethnic Somalis and Muslim.
Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s main target is the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group formed two decades ago to seek independence in response to what it says has been systematic marginalisation by Addis Ababa.
“Two of my brothers who were (rebel) ONLF members were hanged from a tree,” said Fardosa.
But both the ONLF and humanitarian organisations have raised fears that widespread collective punishment and reprisals against civilians are underway in Ogaden, a region under tight army lockdown.
“What is happening… is a form of genocide, it’s a systematic destruction of crops and livestock. There is a total closure of economic development in Ogaden,” said Osman Hassan Ahmed, a 27-year-old from the eastern Ogaden town of Werder who arrived in Bosaso on September 1.
“My tea shop was closed (by the army) in February and I was accused of funding the ONLF… In early July I was arrested with two friends and managed to escape thanks to relatives in the army… but my two friends were hanged.”
The haggard-looking young man expects more suffering ahead on the gruelling crossing to Yemen on boats where smugglers have been known to starve and beat their passengers for days.
“I’m planning to travel to Yemen. The deadly voyage is just about luck, I’ve seen my two friends hanged and thought I’d be the next. I’ve escaped the angel of death quite a few times and I hope to escape again,” he said.
The Ogaden refugees in Bosaso express dismay at what they see as the world’s indifference to their plight and their region, an arid zone believed to contain large quantities of oil and natural gas though rebel activities have scuppered efforts to develop a significant mining industry.
“Darfur gets all the world attention but Ogaden is the same… It’s unfortunate and sad that the world has turned a blind eye on what is happening there,” said Abdi Ahmed Abdillah.
The 31-year-old farmer says he fled the village of Koos in July with his wife and three children. He had to leave two other children behind.
“In my lifetime, I’ve never seen such massive displacement of civilians by the Ethiopian government, it’s new,” he said.
Ethiopian Woyanne forces launched their sweep of Ogaden following an ONLF attack on a Chinese oil venture in April that left 77 people dead, including several Chinese workers.
The refugees charge that Addis Ababa is targeting civilians and their livelihood in a bid to undermine support for the ONLF.
“I was a livestock farmer, I had cows but the government took all of them, accusing me of being affiliated to ONLF,” said Abdillah, who denies any rebel affiliation.
“I felt threatened… I heard about relatives who were mutilated… One of my aunts was gang-raped and hanged from a tree by Ethiopian Woyanne forces,” he said.
He said that violence in the Ogaden for years was confined to skirmishes between the rebels and government forces. “The past year, it has became worse… Now, the source of livelihood of civilians is being targeted.”
Jama Ali Aden had a similar story.
He left his home in Werder district in early August after Ethiopian Woyanne troops raided neighbouring villages.
“I witnessed the army burning the village of Arawelo,” said Aden, who fled to Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia, with his camels, which he sold to pay for the crossing.
“Over the past six months, we’ve experienced a new tactic of indiscriminate punishment from the government to take revenge on the ONLF,” he said.
Hawa, a 43-year-old woman from Gabo-Gabo in eastern Ogaden, said anybody could fall victim to the Ethiopian Woyanne crackdown.
“All the males were rounded up and detained, we could hear their screams being tortured. I was so traumatised I decided to flee,” she said.
Hawa said that the risks of the crossing are dwarfed by those of simply staying in her home region.
“I’m much happier in my hut here. There’s no sense of security and peace in Ethiopia… You are never sure when the soldiers will come.”
Humanitarian organisations have recently complained that Ethiopian troops and authorities have prevented them from pursuing their activities in Ogaden, raising fears that a major crisis was looming in the region.
“I think we are missing a big thing that is happening under our eyes,” said Loris de Filippi, operational coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) Belgium in Ethiopia, after Addis Ababa expelled both MSF and the International Committee for the Red Cross from reaching Ogaden’s worst-hit areas.
A UN fact-finding mission visited Ogaden earlier this month to determine the impact of the violence on the civilian population, but it has not yet made its conclusions public.