The town of Labigah, February 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Satellite images confirm reports that the Ethiopian Woyanne military has burned towns and villages in the remote Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported on Thursday.
Eight sites in the rocky, arid region, which borders Somalia, have clear signs of burning and other destruction, the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program said.
The commercially available images corroborate a report by Human Rights Watch, also issued on Thursday, that uses eyewitness accounts of attacks on tens of thousands of ethnic-Somali Muslims living in the area, the AAAS said.
“The Ethiopian Woyanne authorities frequently dismiss human rights reports, saying that the witnesses we interviewed are liars and rebel supporters,” Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“But it will be much more difficult for them to dismiss the evidence presented in the satellite images, as images like that don’t lie,” he said.
Ethiopia Woyanne, a key regional ally of the United States, launched its latest offensive after the Ogaden National Liberation Front attacked a Chinese-run oil field in the region in April 2007, killing more than 70 people.
Ethiopian Woyanne government officials in Addis Ababa routinely reject allegations against their counter-insurgency operations and accuse the rebels of abusing locals.
Lars Bromley, project director for the Science and Human Rights Program at AAAS, said his team analyzed several before and after satellite images of villages identified by Human Right Watch as possible locations of human rights violations.
They found eight, mostly in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur and Qorrahey Zones, that appeared to have been burned or destroyed recently.
For example, in the town of Labigah, 40 structures identified in a September 2005 image were gone in images taken in February 2008. In the Human Rights Watch report an eyewitness said the Ethiopian army “went into every village and set it on fire.”
Such reports are nearly impossible to corroborate because the region “may well be the most isolated place on earth, save perhaps the densest parts of the Congolese or Amazon rain forests,” Bromley said.
It is also difficult to tell what is going on in some villages, AAAS said.
“While some towns are considered permanent, they can grow and shrink over the course of a year due to fluctuations in nomadic populations, and many smaller villages will relocate altogether,” the report reads.
“To ensure the most accurate results, AAAS for the most part sought to review only permanent towns in the Ogaden, as indicated by their location along a well-defined road and by the presence of square structures with metal-sheet or brick roofing, and most often including a mosque.”
AAAS has used satellite images to support reports of widespread abuses in Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Burma, Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan.
Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by David Wiessler
Click here for the 18-page report and photos.
8 thoughts on “Satellites confirm destruction of villages by Woyanne forces”
More than 300 villages were burnt to the ground last year alone by the TPLF army in Ogaden. Survivers and eyewitnesses are telling about how the Woyannes went on killing sprees for weeks targeting only the defenceless civilians in Dhagahbur, Kabridahar, Fiiq, Wardher, Godey and many other places in Ogaden.The TPLF army go out of its way to avoid and fight the ONLF fighters.Without a doubt,war crimes have been committed by Meles`army in Ogaden.He tried to cover it up but he cann`t.
How many of this horrible acts against OGADENIS are we going to hear? How long will USA,UK,UN…continue abeting killers of mothers,babies,defenseless people??? These so called government of ethiopia is made up of criminals and gangesters…
Coudl the same Satellites locate and confrim where the TPLF mafia is hiding the Gold Depository stolen from the National Bank of Ethiopian
Mengistu distructed Hawzen,Tigray and Meles has distructed Ethiopia, especially Ogaden. So why the supreme court of Ethiopia decided death penality for Mengstu having the war criminal gay beside him. his is all politics.
Can I borrow the satellite only for a few hours so that I can kill the major weyane memebers including meles, sebhat, bereket, samora,and others inside ethiopia and outside. I would pay anything including my life if I get the chance to borrow it…..wow…may god bring that day for me…
Elias BETAM ASGOMEGEHEGNE EKO
This an insult in the history of Ethiopia that is being committed by Woyanies in the name of “Ethiopia”.
This will have a long term and very very bad consequence in the future unity of Ethiopia as one nation.
There is no way that the people of Ogadien will forgive and forget this atrocity.
Woyanne was bragging about destroying the ONLF in the last two months because they thought burning villages would deny the ONLF the popular support it needs to continue the fight for freedom and dignity. The Woyannne fools never learn from history, Emperor Haileselassie’s Huletegna kife tor burned countless Eritrean villages in the 1960s, executed many young people in broad day light, thinking that but brutalizing the people they will scare them into not fighting for their freedom. Burning villages and killing innocents only reinforces their resolve to fight with more determination. I hope the Ogadenis will not harbor any animosity towards the rest of Ethiopian people because they have nothing to do with these diabolical acts of Woyanne, as long as the ONLF stays true to its principles they will only make sure the rights of their people are restored forever.
as usual the weyane and their masters will denied the villages existence or they will said it is not in ethiopia. Weyane has an answer to even the undeniable evidence of satelite images.
defeat to weyane:
Victory to the people