JIJIGA, Ethiopia (AFP) — Ahmed Nour Abdi sighs heavily when asked to describe his futile attempts at mediation, a customary practice among elders in the restive Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

“The other side refused to meet us,” he says, referring to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF, rebellion), with whom he planned to negotiate a peace deal. “We went as far away as London, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Washington but nothing was achieved,” he adds.

Lying just 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Somaliland, Jijiga thrives from cross-border trade with its neighbor, a self-declared independent region from Somalia, but has been unable to avoid a spate of sporadic violence that has rocked the Ogaden.

Through respected elders like Nour Abdi, the Ethiopian Woyanne government tribal junta claims to have made attempts to negotiate with the ONLF, but accuses them of flouting such pleas.

Formed two decades ago, the secessionist group has been carrying out a rebellion against the government Woyanne junta in response to what it asserts is systematic marginalisation by Addis Ababa. A massive clampdown was launched by the army following an ONLF attack on a Chinese-run oil venture that killed 77 people in March last year.

But despite government Woyanne claims of victory against the rebel group, hit-and-run attacks have been hard to curb throughout the region, and humanitarian aid has faced some slowdowns because of the military operations, according to the UN and humanitarian agencies.

In one of the latest attacks on January 17, “a bomb was thrown in a place where merchants and innocent people lived, two children got leg injuries,” says Haji Ali Gurez, an elder from one of the Ogaden’s biggest clans, the Jedwaq.

Police officials, traffic police and senior officials were among those who were often targetted last year.

“We have managed to destroy the ONLF in the bush, but some of the remnants manage to commit terror attacks in the city,” police chief Abdi Mohammed Omar admits. “Some of them hide among the population and it takes time to clean everything.”

The UN agencies have charged that the military operations in Ogaden have hampered food distribution to displaced people, estimated at more than 650,000 in the Somali region, and “endangered the food security” there.

The government Woyanne on January 10 rejected this, saying that the UN agencies’ statement was “an exaggerated story, (…) it should be realised that there does not exist any chronic shortage of food in the Ogaden region”.

Recently, Ethiopia Woyanne expelled two international aid agencies from the region, prompting fears that a major humanitarian crisis was about to unfold in the strife-torn region.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) and Doctors Without Borders Belgium (Medecins Sans Frontiers Belgium, MSF) were both barred for allegedly aiding the rebels.

“They (ICRC) provided satellite phones to anti-peace elements in the bush. They were even giving them access to their vehicles and information about the whereabouts of regional officials,” said regional president Abdullahi Hassan, who himself survived an assassination attempt during a rally last year.

But aid has now resumed through UN and Ethiopian Woyanne state agencies. By early this month, almost 17,000 tonnes of relief food had been delivered by the government to the five zones under military operation.

Despite delays due to shortage of military escorts in some areas, the feared major food crisis seems to have been held off.

The government also hopes to reap benefits from the region’s untapped resources, notably oil and gas reserves, as well as water resources.

Multi-million dollar schemes on water facilities are well underway, albeit heavily guarded by rifle-brandishing soldiers.

But for most Ogadenis, one thing dominates above all.

“Food does come these days,” says a street vendor in the neighboring region of Degahabur. “But peace is what we need.”